Des Browne: Not at all. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman does not fully understand where the strengths of the scheme lie. He also probably does not understand his party's policy on identity, given that 80 per cent. of the scheme and its costs relate to e-passports, which are supported by his party. The scheme and its integrity depend on being able to build a database that links biometrics to the individual person's identity so that it can be protected. Whether any service, devolved or otherwise, chooses to use that opportunity to check the identity of those people who access the service will in no way undermine the scheme.

Des Browne: Another flaw in the SNP local income tax policy is uncovered daily, and this particular one relates to the policy's alleged fairness. An answer to a question in the Scottish Parliament revealed that 55,000 students would be brought into paying local income tax. Of course, all those students are exempt from paying council tax. I have a series of quotations from student leaders indicating how unfair the policy would be, but I think that we all know how unfair it would be. It is bad enough that we did not know that it would affect those students, but we do not know how the money would be collected, and those are only two of the several major flaws in the plans for local income tax.

David Cameron: When is the Prime Minister going to learn that new green taxes should be offset, one by one, by cuts in family taxes? The Prime Minister says that we should look at the detail; let me take him up on that, because he spews out statistics that, in any other walk of life, would result in trading standards officers coming in and clamping him in irons. He says that next year, half of all motorists will be better off or no worse off; that is what he has just said. The full effect of the tax rise is not planned to take effect until 2010, and the Treasury has said that under this regime, 81 per cent. of cars will be worse off. Once again, dodgy statistics from the Prime Minister.
	Let us start when the tax was first announced. Can the Prime Minister tell us why the Chancellor, in his Budget speech, made no mention of the fact that the tax would hit people who had bought a car up to seven years ago? Why no mention?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Are the hon. Members defying the Chair?

Gordon Brown: I now know what the head of the right hon. Gentleman's own policy commission on the environment meant when he said of the Leader of the Opposition:
	"Whether he's riding a bike, or visiting glaciers, it's all part of projecting a message...A lot of people will say this is just opportunism. They may be right."
	When it comes to the issue of supporting action on the environment, we now find that the right hon. Gentleman runs away at every point. When it comes to helping the poor, he says that he wants to help the poor and then does not support our tax cut. When it comes to helping the low paid, he does not support the minimum wage. When it comes to helping the environment, he runs away on the environment.

Nicholas Clegg: I would like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Marine Dale Gostick.
	We have all been appalled by the grotesque spectacle of Robert Mugabe lecturing the world on food security just as his Government are blocking the distribution of food aid to his own people. What message does it send that a man who has brought ruin and starvation to his own country continues to be honoured by a knighthood from ours? Will the Prime Minister at least accept that it is difficult to put pressure on other countries to do their bit to bring the Mugabe regime to heel if we do not take this simple, basic step? Will he take immediate action to strip Mugabe of his knighthood?

Gordon Brown: Again, the Conservatives have the chance to ask anything on behalf of their constituencies and they reduce the debates in the House of Commons to trivia. I am happy to be in contact and talking to people in the electorate; perhaps the hon. Gentleman should do so as well.

Sharon Hodgson: Can the Prime Minister tell the House why his judgment is that we need 42 days' pre-charge detention, and not rely on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004?

Gordon Brown: I am sure that the whole House is going to miss the contributions of the hon. Gentleman, not only in speech, but in writing—those have been more significant over the last few years.
	I welcome the ban on alcohol. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the policy put forward by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families earlier this week to deal with the problems of alcohol among young people is a major step forward in holding parents, as well as young people, responsible for binge drinking. I hope that he will also accept that the reason that crime has fallen in London is that there are 6,000 more police officers and 4,000 community support officers. That would not have been possible without the previous Mayor and the decisions of this Government.

Gordon Brown: The 2005 made it possible to double the limits on society lottery proceeds to £10 million over the course of a year and £2 million for an individual lottery. I know that the Lotteries Council and the Hospice Lotteries Association submitted a request to the Sports Minister to change those limits and we will consider that proposal, but I remind my hon. Friend that the amount that can be raised has been doubled. We continue to want to do all we can, both in Government finance and in helping charitable fundraising, for this country's great hospice movement.

Shailesh Vara: Given the Prime Minister's keen interest in constitutional matters, what is his view of the strong possibility that there will be not merely one, but two unelected Prime Ministers in this Parliament?

Simon Hughes: The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) is entitled to come to the House to ask us to recognise the contribution made by Poles in this country. I unreservedly do so. I am not of Polish origin, although my sister-in-law comes from a Polish family. I have many Polish constituents and I have Polish friends. I was at school with Polish youngsters in mid-Wales, where they had settled, as they did in other parts of the country. However, I do not think it a well conceived idea to introduce a Bill to give a bank holiday to recognise one group of people, however eminent, who came and served alongside us in this country. I would like the House to reflect on how we ought really to deal with this matter, but deal with it in a different way.
	There is no doubting the bravery of the Poles in wartime. They had a special role in our services, especially the Air Force, and they are rightly commemorated. The Poles were not the only people who came from eastern Europe to help in the war. The Czechs also supplied brave people. As you will know, Mr. Speaker, people of other countries—not eastern Europe, but other parts of Europe—specifically came and helped in our struggles. In particular, the Norwegians and the Dutch came to help us in our time of need during the last war.
	There are people whom we could recognise as having served us in those dark days from 1940 to 1945, but there are others who came from different parts of the world and gave fantastic military service, such as people from many of the islands of the Caribbean. Large numbers of people from India and what are now Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka served in our forces. People from most African countries in the empire—not just South Africa, but the poorest countries such as Sierra Leone—served with great distinction. People from other parts of the world also came. If we were to recognise people who were not British born but who came and served with us, there would be a host of nations that we ought to recognise together.
	Since the war, people have come and made a fantastic contribution in peacetime. Many people whose countries are not members of the European Union but who are European citizens have lived here for 20, 30 or 40 years and contributed, but they are not entitled to full EU rights. Norwegians are such an example.
	There are people who have served alongside us in other conflicts, some well conceived and others less so. The French and the Israelis were with us in the Suez conflict. Whether that was a good place to be, history will tell. There are probably a dozen other major countries from all over the world that are with us in Afghanistan to this day, and contributing—for example, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Denmark provide troops. Again, there are others who are assisting in the protection of British interests around the world. People have come from all over the world to do the building, the plumbing and all those other things.
	If we are to recognise immigrants in Britain, let us do so, but let us remember, too, the breadth of immigration. Immigrants have come from almost every country in the world. I am privileged to represent a constituency that probably contains people from every country. The other day at my surgery, for the first time I spoke to a woman from the Comoros islands, which indicates the range of people who come here.
	We need to be careful when we get into the debate on immigration. To my knowledge, no party has ever argued for uncontrolled immigration. No party has ever considered that to be a responsible attitude. There are different ways of dealing with immigration, and certainly it could be dealt with better. We all accept the need for controls. However, it is obviously wrong to have a go at legal immigrants in this country.
	I want to pay a tribute. Were it not for immigrants from Poland, eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and the rest of the world, most of our public services would not function and, in truth, much of the private sector would not function either. If there is a case for recognising immigrants, let us do so, but let us do the same for those who served us in wartime and those who serve us in peacetime.
	If the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham wants to engage in a debate about bank holidays, there is a debate to be had. I have long argued that there should be a St George's day bank holiday in England, a St David's day public holiday in Wales and a St Andrew's day public holiday in Scotland as well as the St Patrick's day holiday in Northern Ireland. There are four other obvious candidates for celebration: Commonwealth day on the second Monday in March—we could rightfully celebrate that as a holiday—VE day in May, United Nations day in October, and Human Rights day in December. There are plenty of causes for celebration and for another bank holiday, but, however much I understand his personal commitment, I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that to single out one nation and its contribution for one specific recognition would not be in the interests of either the Polish community or the other communities in the United Kingdom.
	I shall not seek to divide the House on whether the hon. Gentleman should have leave to bring in his Bill, but if he managed to get it as far as a Second Reading debate I would vote against it. I believe that we should be much more inclusive and not so specific in recognising people in this country who come from elsewhere and have contributed so much in peace and in war.
	 Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Daniel Kawczynski, Mr. John Battle, Greg Mulholland, Ann Winterton, David Wright, John Bercow, Mr. Denis MacShane, Stephen Pound, Mrs. Nadine Dorries and Dr. Alan Whitehead.

Francis Maude: I shall come to exactly that concern. I was going to mention the work on penal reform and the incredibly important work that needs to be done to address our appalling rates on the reconviction and reimprisonment of prisoners. My hon. Friend puts his finger on an important point.
	Some parts of the volunteering sector have as many volunteers as they need, whereas others warn of a shortage. That indicates that episodic volunteering is flourishing, rather than the kind of long-term commitment that most volunteering organisations seek. Youth organisations such as the scouts and guides are, happily, growing fast, but they are finding it hard to recruit enough leaders to cope with the serious growth in the number of young people who want to take part in those activities.
	There have also been shortages in the public service. The number of special constables has dropped sharply in the past 10 years. The National Trust reports an increase in volunteer numbers but a decrease in the amount of time that the average volunteer can contribute. At the same time, there is evidence that some existing volunteers are taking on ever more responsibilities. It is not surprising that in a Volunteering England survey of charities, 86 per cent. of respondents said that their priority was to keep existing volunteers rather than to search for new recruits.
	A fantastic amount is being done, and nothing that we or any other party proposes should in any way diminish our recognition and celebration of that. Every volunteer whom I meet—I expect that other hon. Members have found the same—passionately wants more people to volunteer and volunteers to do more.

Ian Lucas: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that a real challenge for volunteering in an era of high employment is encouraging people who are in work to do voluntary work? One of the most powerful ways of doing that is to persuade volunteers of how much they can personally gain from volunteering.

Francis Maude: Speaking of recognition, the House should recognise the work that my right hon. Friend has done, particularly through the Centre for Social Justice, which has been absolutely superb. It has promoted good practice and focused attention on what can be done when inspiring, dedicated people commit themselves to solving social challenges. He has done the country an enormous service in focusing on those issues in recent years. I totally take on board the point that he has made about what the people who run these organisations want—namely, to be allowed to get on with the job that they have been inspired to do.
	We have mentioned Baroness Neuberger's commission, on which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) served. The commission noted
	"a very large amount of criticism of several aspects of the Government's initiatives to promote volunteering",
	which focused on a
	"lack of joined-up thinking...poor communication...funding timescales...reporting and monitoring timescales...targets to the detriment of quality...quality and quantity of volunteering placements available".
	It concluded that
	"the depressing thing is that messages about short-termism and a project based approach that fails to become mainstream—all of which we have heard repeatedly—are not new."
	There are issues, and it is important that we seek to address them with an open spirit.
	There is an urgent need to promote volunteering, as well as other non-state activity, in what we believe to be the rather ill-named third sector. There is growing consensus across the political spectrum that the limit to the size of the taxpayer-funded state has been reached or exceeded. We read remarks by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), and we see the Lib Dems' direction of travel; it is clear that there are no longer any serious advocates, outside the ranks of doctrinal statists, for the state as the answer to all social ills.
	Of course, there remain pressing social challenges for today's Britain. We think of the linking of family breakdown with crime and addiction, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has done a huge amount to highlight. We already have the largest prison population in Europe, yet we can also see the appalling record of prisoners being reconvicted and imprisoned within two years of their release. We see 2.6 million people with disabilities on incapacity benefit, when so many could, and would prefer to, be in some sort of work. We see the pockets of acute poverty that still exist in too many parts of our country.
	Addressing those challenges requires active intervention, because in most cases the key to success is breaking the cycle of deprivation. That means treating each person individually and working with them in a holistic way to solve their problems. The state is not good at that.

Francis Maude: My hon. Friend makes an important point very well. The scouts are expanding, which is excellent, but they need the encouragement of new leaders and volunteers to come in and work with young people to provide exactly the sort of support that my hon. Friend mentioned, particularly male role models. Many boys and young men are growing up without a father in their lives and, in many cases, without any male teachers; the proportion of male teachers in primary schools is now down to 10 per cent. or so, and is 20 per cent. in secondary schools. There are lots of young men growing up without any male role models in their lives, which is a concern.
	The state is not good at that holistic treatment of the challenged individual—the individual with significant problems which society has a vested interest in solving—but voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises are good at that. That is why our approach to these challenges unashamedly places emphasis on the role of an active and enlarged civil society.

Daniel Kawczynski: On finance, in Shropshire many volunteers are senior citizens and people on very low incomes. They play a vital role as volunteers, but due to a lack of support from the Government to Shropshire country council, the council is struggling to give those people enough money to pay for their mileage in covering very large distances in a rural county such as Shropshire.

Iain Duncan Smith: There is a real nub to this debate and my right hon. Friend is on it now: whether or not the state sees the voluntary sector as an add-on to the work it does, or as a viable, separate entity that it will help and support in the areas where it works. When Beveridge designed what we call the welfare state, he wrote a third paper in response to the introduction of the welfare state by the then Labour Government. He warned that the voluntary sector would be subsumed into the welfare state, instead of being viable and separate in its own right. Think of the private sector. We write off vast sums of money from small businesses in taxation and do not ask them to pay the money back when they fail. They get huge write-offs. When it comes to the voluntary sector, we say, "There is only a year's contract. Give us full cost recovery. If you can't do that, goodbye."

Jeremy Wright: This follows up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk made. There clearly must be a case for simplifying and speeding up the CRB process. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given cases such as that of a constituent of mine who underwent all kinds of checks to enable him to be employed at a young offenders institution, only to be told that he would need another CRB check when he approached the scouts to offer to help on a Thursday night, we should, at the very least, ensure that one check will suffice for all similar activity?

Phil Hope: The hon. Gentleman is right. It is one thing to change the rules to ensure that individuals on benefits can continue to volunteer and claim expenses, but the guidance needs to get out to every single jobcentre and organisation that uses volunteers, who also need to know the rules themselves. We do need a good communications campaign. Part of my job as champion for the third sector in Government is to ensure that when that does not happen I talk to ministerial colleagues, Departments and others to ensure that they understand and implement the new Government policy.
	We welcome the report by Baroness Morgan, which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Horsham, on volunteering by people on benefits. It includes further ideas and suggestions. We will consider them and see what more we can do to ensure that we ease volunteering into the role of a route into work for workless people. Many of us can think of projects and examples where that has been the case.
	When it comes to expenses, benefits and CRB checks, volunteering is getting easier, but if one listens to the right hon. Members for Horsham and for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) one would sometimes think that the only thing the state should do is get out of the way. Those are almost the same words as were used earlier. I do not agree.
	That takes me to my second point. We need actively to support volunteers and the small voluntary organisations that bring them together. Let me say how. Often, volunteers work for very small community organisations—we all have examples in our constituencies—often with no paid member of staff and little or no access to funds. For those very small volunteer-led community projects, a small amount of money can make a huge difference. That is why we now have a new programme, announced in last year's Budget, to provide small grants to the smallest community organisations. The grassroots grants scheme will give grants of between £250 and £5,000 over the next three years to small volunteer-led organisations based in the heart of our communities. In July, we will announce the local partners who will give out the money, and I hope to se the first grants go out to those community groups in the autumn.
	Embedded in the programme is an endowment component. Part of the money for the grassroots grants will create new endowments in every area of the country. That is a fundamentally new approach that has not been taken before by any Government and will create a sustainable source of small grant funding in every area of the country. The endowment funds will never be spent, but the interest generated by them will provide a supply of small grants to small community groups in every part of the country. That is an extraordinary new and ambitious way forward, and I hope that it has the support of the House.
	Volunteers are often deeply rooted in their community. That is what makes them so effective. They do not always hear about the best ways to recruit other volunteers and to ensure they are used effectively. That is why in November 2007, as part of an overall £11 billion a year investment in education, employment and training, the Government opened up the flagship Train to Gain skills programme not only to paid staff of voluntary organisations but to volunteers. I want to use the debate to encourage all third sector organisations to access the Train to Gain funding pool to help to upskill their staff and volunteers.
	Last March, we announced £4 million to train volunteers and those who manage them. That is why our GoldStar programme, which started in 2005, is working nationally and locally to spread good practice in volunteer management, going out to local and voluntary sector groups and providing them with training and support. I want to pay tribute to Baroness Neuberger for her work with the independent Commission on the Future of Volunteering—members of the commission have already spoken in the debate—which has drawn attention to these issues. She is a tireless champion for volunteering and is viewed with huge respect—some would say fear—across this House and in the wider volunteering community.
	Not only small grants and training, but active support can be needed when people want to volunteer but need an extra bit of help to do so. If someone is disabled, has no formal qualifications or faces other barriers, they can be left trapped and isolated without a helping hand. That is why Government programmes such as Volunteering for All are so important. They help to dispel the myth that volunteering is "Not for people like me", spreading the message that volunteering is truly for all and that it should become part of the DNA of our society.
	Our most significant investment is in the future of volunteering. Strong habits—such as volunteering, taking responsibility and taking part in the community—are best started early, so over three years, the Government are investing £117 million in the independent charity v. The remarks made earlier by the right hon. Member for Horsham, which were critical, were unwise and, as he must know, inaccurate. So far, v has created more than 210,000 volunteering opportunities and it plans to deliver more than 500,000 more in the coming years—I hope that answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes). That is a way in which we can encourage hundreds of thousands of young people to engage in a variety of youth-led projects and initiatives across the country, to get involved in their communities and to make a difference. Once they have that habit, I think that they will keep it for the rest of their lives.
	It is important that we reward and recognise the contribution made by volunteers. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green was wrong to say that we should not recognise and celebrate the work of volunteers, although I do not think that he quite meant it in that way. I was at Buckingham palace only a few days ago to watch the volunteers and groups of volunteers receive the Queen's award for voluntary service. Those awards were presented by the Queen, and other members of the royal family were present, and those who came to the awards were over the moon at the recognition of the value of the contribution made by those often unsung heroes. Although it is not the only thing that we should do, we should not underestimate the importance of giving such recognition to individuals who play a part in their communities.

Paul Truswell: Before the Minister leaves the point about on-the-ground assistance to small voluntary organisations, will he deal with this point? I am sure that he will accept and appreciate the huge contribution that community amateur sports clubs make to local communities by encouraging participation in healthy pastimes, particularly for young people, who are diverted away from antisocial behaviour. Will he join those Members, some of whom are in the Chamber today, who are campaigning for tax relief on junior sports club contributions?

Phil Hope: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I regret the fact that as a Member of the Government I am unable to speak on behalf of the Chancellor, but my hon. Friend has made a powerful point that I am sure will be heard in the Treasury as a proposal for encouraging more people to volunteer, not least in the world of sport. Volunteers in sport and the arts play a huge role through not only increasing participation, but the wider benefits that that participation brings. Young people become engaged, gain greater skills and are diverted from antisocial behaviour into social behaviour. They learn to gain skills and self-confidence as a result. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the wider benefits of volunteering in a range of ways.

Phil Hope: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to find better ways to connect those in the world of sport who are involved with not-for-profit organisations in sports clubs up and down the country that take part in and encourage participation in sport to be seen as part of the whole community of the third sector. We must ensure that our policies and programmes reflect that. In a debate only yesterday, the point was made to Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, that organisations such as the NCVO could see how they could look at themselves as part of a large infrastructure body that we support and fund as a strategic partner to embrace a whole wealth of organisations in not only the world of sport, but the world of art.
	The Conservative party has been talking about leadership. The right hon. Member for Horsham concluded his speech by talking about volunteering by civil servants. Indeed, I think that he briefed the  Daily Mail that
	"Tories accept that a day off a year is only a first step".
	He talked about eight hours today. However, on that first step, he has fallen over. Every civil servant in every central Government Department already has the right to paid time off for volunteering. Those in the Cabinet Office have the right to three days a year and in some Departments, such as the Home Office, the right is to five days a year.
	The right hon. Member for Horsham will have welcomed our moves to help not just central civil servants, but all public sector workers, including doctors, nurses, police and teachers. Thanks to a new £13 million fund that we announced in March, they can now volunteer in some of the poorest countries in the world without losing their pension contributions. I am sure that he will welcome today's announcement by the Cabinet Secretary that we have established a cross-Government working group to promote volunteering in the central civil service. I am delighted that, rather than us adopting Conservative party policy, the Conservative party has caught up with something that has been Government policy for some time.
	We have a great track record on volunteering, and we are working with volunteers and voluntary organisations to push back the frontiers of what they can do. However, volunteering does not exist in isolation. There are two debates that affect it deeply, but they have met only silence from the Conservative party. The first is on money. When questioned, the right hon. Member for Horsham felt unable to tell the House that total public funding for the third sector has more than doubled in real terms over the past decade from less than £5 billion in 1997 to more than £10 billion according to the latest figures. That record investment is a proud achievement of a Government who are working in partnership with the third sector to ensure that it continues to thrive and succeed.
	There is more than that, however. This comes down to a philosophical divide: do volunteering and the ethic of volunteering get weaker or stronger when public services are well funded? Labour Members know the answer. Volunteers complement good funding. If one talks to them and hears what they are working to achieve, there is no doubt that they are helped, not harmed, by good public services. Indeed, the Conservative party's publication shows that countries with high public spending have lots of volunteering. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Norway. Volunteers add most to gross domestic product in the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, and the countries with the largest number of volunteers are Norway, the UK and Sweden.
	If one listens to the Conservative party, one hears this:
	"Many things that are done by the government or the private sector could be done more effectively, or more cheaply, by the third sector."
	Those are the words of not some off-message Back Bencher, but the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the Conservatives' policy chief, who is writing the party's manifesto. He let the cat out of the bag while speaking to the NCVO in February. The Conservatives do not believe in a strong society that supports services that enhance that society being paid for fairly through taxation, even though the international comparisons suggest that volunteering thrives in societies in which public services are strong and collectively paid for.

Phil Hope: There is a philosophical divide, not least when we think about the wider role of volunteers. When volunteers see for themselves that something needs to change, do they feel able have their voices heard and to campaign for those changes, or do they worry that if they speak up against the way in which law works or public policy affects the people whom they help, they will find themselves on the wrong side of the law or cut out from decision making regarding the public services about which they care so much? Volunteers are not motivated by plugging the gaps where public services fail. They are motivated to change those services through speaking up for the people affected, campaigning to change the law, being involved in the design of services that could make all the difference, and working towards ensuring that new services are the right ones that are properly funded by all of us through taxation.
	When we have clashed with the Conservatives here and in other places on campaigning, their discomfort has been palpable and their silence deafening. Although there is no mention of the issue in the report that they published yesterday, we remember when charities such as Oxfam were afraid to campaign because the Conservative Government were disapproving. I see volunteers acting as advocates for those whom the system has let down, and acting not only as individuals, but as a group, to change the system altogether. One great example was the mass movement of volunteers who were mobilised through the Make Poverty History campaign.

Phil Hope: The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has listened to what I have said. He will know that I have just described how we have reduced bureaucracy and made volunteering easier by enabling people on benefits to volunteer, and how volunteers can claim expenses. I see volunteers every day of the week; one of the great privileges of being the Minister for the third sector is that I spend a lot of my time with volunteers, as well as users and staff of third-sector organisations, and see the remarkable work that they do on the ground, changing and transforming people's lives.
	My point was that in the Conservative party's policies, there is an absence of any mention of the other roles that volunteers play, for instance as advocates for users, and in being the voice of the voiceless. They do that both collectively and individually; people even come along to our constituency surgeries to act as advocates on behalf of individuals who are in need, and who are struggling with the local council's systems. The absence of mention of that campaigning role tells me that the Opposition see it as the third sector's part to be silent and grateful. That simply will not do. That is not the case for the third sector in the 21st century.

Phil Hope: My hon. Friend, with his wealth of experience, again speaks knowledgeably about the possibly unintended—I suspect that they are intended—consequences of policies that the Conservative party would put in place, were it ever in a position to do so. Those policies would not be in the interests of some of the most disadvantaged, alienated, disfranchised groups in our communities.
	Mention of the Government's track record in leading the way for improvements and support for volunteering and community action has been absent from this debate, and it was also absent from the Conservatives' report. However, looking at the report, I say that perhaps that silence is better. We have waited a long time for the Conservative party's ideas. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) started promising ideas on charitable giving for the new year in 2007; we have been waiting for them. The right hon. Member for West Dorset started promising a Green Paper in February, at a conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, but after all that waiting, when we finally read it, we can see that it is a rush job with heavy use of cut and paste, not least from Government policy on the third sector.
	Let us take idea No. 1, which is to reduce administration on gift aid. I will send the right hon. Member for Horsham a copy of the Budget so that he can read for himself how charities can now bundle together donations under £10, so that they do not have to list all the individual donors on the claim form—a major step forward in reducing bureaucracy. Charities with small claims will no longer be penalised for errors in record keeping. Charities with a good record of bookkeeping may soon be able to self-certify. All that comes about after our discussions with charities on how to make the system work, and individuals can already give oral declarations rather fill in a form. He and his party make warm noises about getting rid of paper trails, but they have no ideas to contribute. The truth is that we are cutting out unnecessary paperwork. I challenge him now: would he abolish the need for a record of declarations—for an audit trail for more than £800 million of public money—or does he admit that he was creating false expectations by promising action when there is nothing that he can deliver?
	Or let us take idea No. 3, which is about giving "Direct support for volunteering" through real volunteering groups, not Government-controlled bodies. Let me send the right hon. Gentleman copies of the reports by v, the independent youth-led charity that we have already mentioned, which works with hundreds of other grass-roots volunteering organisations to deliver volunteering opportunities. Those opportunities are directed not by Government, and not even by organisations, but by young people themselves. I can send him our press release of 31 January on the small grants programme, which, as I said earlier, will support voluntary organisations, not through a Government body but through local funders with grass-roots knowledge and experience of grant-making in their area.
	The Conservatives' idea No. 5 is to introduce a volunteers' hours scheme for central Government employees. As I said, we are already doing that. Every central Government Department now gives at least one day, and in many cases they give up to five days. Idea No. 6 is to improve Criminal Records Bureau checks. We have just had a debate about the fact that we have published a document on improving CRB checks.

Susan Kramer: I confess that I thought that this would be a worthy, celebratory but rather dull debate, but it is turning out to be anything but that. The Liberal Democrat party obviously supports the motion; it would be hard not to when many of the references in it are to well-known Liberals or Liberal Democrats. The motion uses a phrase from the Commission for Future Volunteering that we very much approve of; it calls for
	"volunteering to become part of the DNA of our society".
	It is part of the DNA of my party, both now and in the past.
	At least we have all agreed today that the health of a society is largely to be judged by the commitment of its citizens to that society. That is incredibly well expressed through volunteering. For me, this is a relatively new area to focus on from a policy perspective, so I was pleased to have the opportunity earlier this year to attend a Volunteering England event with two hon. Members who are present today on different sides of the Chamber—the Minister and the hon. Member for West Dorset.

Susan Kramer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. It has probably taken the Green Paper to provide clarity. When I have had discussions with the voluntary sector, they have not shared that perception. They have seen national citizen service as a step towards a compulsory strategy. It is important that that does not happen. Community service of various kinds and volunteering should not be confused.
	We have heard much about the benefits that come from volunteering, the way in which volunteers can build confidence and pride in their communities, and that volunteering across communities helps bring people together. I shall focus on the need to embed the culture of youth action and youth volunteering. That should become part of our education system, but there is a tension that needs to be recognised.
	My children grew up in the United States. In order to graduate from high school, it is necessary in many schools there to perform what is called voluntary service, but that is not very voluntary. As it is regarded as part of the curriculum, most youngsters find some way to do it more in the breach than by actively engaging. When volunteering becomes embedded as a necessary part of the curriculum, there is always the risk that that will undermine the spirit of community and engagement that should be part of a healthy volunteering community. Opportunity within the education system makes an enormous amount of sense, but compulsion, whether it is back-door compulsion or front-door compulsion, is not a particularly attractive characteristic.

James Brokenshire: Does the hon. Lady agree that, as the Morgan inquiry recognised, in which I was lucky enough to take part, getting young people to recognise the benefits of volunteering for their CVs and training and employment opportunities is an important factor? Without in any way undermining her points about the need to promote volunteering in its purest sense, those benefits could be emphasised as a further dimension of volunteering.

Susan Kramer: I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but I would caution him in this respect: we have many youngsters in our community, and I can think of many in mine, who have extensive responsibilities in their own families—for example, young carers. There is no formal recognition of the contribution that they are making. I would hate to see them lose out because that cannot be captured in the same way on a CV.
	Let me give my son as an example. He chose as his route to go and play with puppies once a week—apparently socialising them. I honestly cannot say that that was of serious educational benefit or an addition to his skills, but he was able to craft it in such a way that it probably sounded quite good when the written CV was issued. I ask for an element of common sense in the way we deal with youth volunteering, although, as we know, common sense is hard to deliver.
	I would like much more opportunity for family and intergenerational volunteering in my community. That might require some different thinking by organisations. I hope that part of our discussion of volunteering is addressed to the voluntary sector, encouraging it to think of ways of structuring opportunities so that they strengthen our communities generally. Sometimes the view seems to be, "Here's the task. Now let's find the volunteers." It becomes more interesting when organisations look at the volunteers and think of ways of structuring their activities to meet broader social needs.
	In the world in which we live, with the stress arising from our work-life balance, when parents and grandparents find it difficult to spend the time that they wish with children, volunteering should be not an additional challenge but a mechanism to let people spend time together. I have been impressed with voluntary groups in my community that have seen the opportunity for young people—sometimes young people who, we sense, might be involved in antisocial behaviour—to be brought in to spend time with older people. The young people have taken the opportunity to flower, because for the first time they are met by people who have no preconceptions about them and who are delighted that they are coming in to spend time with them. Mutual respect begins to grow out of those circumstances.
	Like many people, as I reach my current age I would like to dispel the image of the volunteer as the elderly lady in the charity shop, but let us not denigrate the elderly lady in the charity shop, who does an enormous amount of work in our community.
	Many of the statistics on volunteering suggest that people often look at the different activities of ethnic groups. We need to tackle that before the perception develops that people from various ethnic groups do not participate. The statistics tend to show that people not born in the UK are less likely to volunteer. Perhaps that suggests a weakness in reaching out to those groups and giving them a sense of inclusion and welcome.
	Like many hon. Members in their constituencies, in my own community I meet a number of asylum seekers, who do volunteer, but their activities tend to be restricted to organisations structured by the local church or mosque or some faith group. There is a hesitation on the part of charities and voluntary groups more broadly to engage those individuals. I hope that we can get better guidance to make it clear that that is a resource that we can turn to, because there are often incredible skills in the asylum community. We can argue about issues of immigration and asylum, but we have not used the skills of people willing and sometimes almost desperate to become engaged in some way, because the boredom of living day to day with no activity is utterly shattering and destroying.
	I have been fascinated, too, by some of my local mental health charities and my local primary care trust, which has been working with people recovering from mental illnesses and helping them use volunteering as a way to regain their confidence and self-respect; contributing can help the individuals themselves.
	There has been discussion of employer-supported volunteering. The Government are to be congratulated on making time available for civil servants to participate in voluntary activities and it would be excellent if the initiative were strengthened. However, should not we consider not only giving time but matching time? That might be much more palatable to the private sector, part of which still resists the notion of giving time for volunteering.
	If people are willing to give a day of their own holiday, giving a matching employment day can become a much easier strategy. We have missed a trick in not looking at the potential of that. Obviously, the issue would be difficult for small businesses. Ironically, however—the statistics do not bear this out, perhaps because of a flaw in statistics—small businesses in my community value volunteering because they already see themselves closely engaged with the community. I do not find resistance from small businesses; the large business organisations, which feel that things have to be put on a more formal basis, struggle rather more.
	We fully support the idea that volunteers should get recognition for the skills that they acquire. However, as we discussed earlier with reference to job hunting and CVs, there is an element of tension in making sure that the volunteer is carrying out tasks important to the activity, rather than getting a paper national vocational qualification or whatever else.

Andy Reed: On the formalities of volunteering, we have to recognise that lots of people do not see themselves as volunteers. We had that debate during the Morgan inquiry, even though the word "volunteering" was used from the start.
	Most people help; they do not necessarily want to be dragged into a volunteering system that has recognition and all the rest of it, through to formal qualifications. Most people are seeking to help the local scout group, church or community group, for example. Is there not a better way of doing things? Without going through formal recognition, we could allow people to help a little, rather than have them get into all the formal structures, which can be a burden. The hon. Lady is going in the right direction on that issue, but we need to look much more closely—particularly in my own area of sport—at letting people help the local sports club, for example, without having to get formal qualifications to be able to continue to do that in the long term.

Alistair Burt: Let me say to the hon. Gentleman as gently as I can that perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham was taking information from those who contributed to the commission's work. I quote from page 90 of the report, where it says:
	"Many people were critical of the way in which the Experience Corps in particular had been established, referring to it as 'an expensive disaster'—
	a quote from an employee of a national voluntary sector network organisation. I think that my right hon. Friend could be excused for saying that the inauguration of the Experience Corps did not go quite as well as the Government might have wished. He had some evidence for that, and his comments were fair.

Tom Levitt: I am aware that those comments were made in years two and three of the Experience Corps' work. I know that they were made while the Experience Corps was under the auspices of the Home Office, and people clearly have long memories. I have not heard such things said about the Experience Corps in recent years when it has been an independent organisation. It may be that someone giving evidence has recalled it as such, but in my work with the Experience Corps, I have found it to be a thriving and excellent organisation.
	When I asked the right hon. Member for Horsham about professionalisation, he said that he was not opposed to it. On page 24, however, the Conservative document is somewhat ambiguous. It points out that the Directory of Social Change says that
	"52 per cent. of voluntary sector staff in Britain believe that the drive towards professionalisation is killing the spirit of charitable activity."
	However, it also says that there is a higher level of paid people in the voluntary sectors in countries where the voluntary sector is successful. I welcomed the right hon. Gentleman coming off the fence in his response and saying that professionalisation was necessary. It is not the be all and end all—of course, it must not be that—but a professional hub for the sector is necessary.
	There are eight or 10 lines on page 30 of the document on the question of training and recognition dealing with support for sector-led investment and volunteer training and recognition. I reiterate that we must recognise that people have all sorts of different motives for volunteering. One of those motives—I suspect that this is increasingly the case—is to gain experience and qualifications that they can put in their CV and use in future work. If they are going to have that experience and gain those qualifications, it must be possible for it all to be accredited in a way that is acceptable to other sectors. I am not saying that every volunteer has to undergo training or be examined on what they have done—of course not—but if people wish to use their volunteering experience as a way of making themselves more employable, employable at a higher level, or to enable them to branch out into something new in their career, that is a perfectly valid reason for volunteering. They should be able to access accredited training, but definitely not training that is, in the words of the Conservative document,
	"fully owned and controlled by the voluntary sector".
	That would mean that they had skills that could not be transferred, leading them to a dead end.
	On page 37 of the document, reference is made to council funding. I was going to point out that the experience of Conservatives taking control of councils throughout the country during the past few years has been one of cuts to spending. Why? They always tell us that it is to reduce the council tax. What is the first bit that gets cut? It is the non-statutory funding, which means funding for the voluntary sector. I was going to go into that, but the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) put it so succinctly that I will let his comments speak for themselves. We must bear it in mind that we are told in the document that ring-fencing of council funding will take place
	"so that councils can spend their funding as they see fit".
	That will set off alarm bells among those in the voluntary sector because they know what Conservative councils do when they
	"spend their funding as they see fit".
	That will all take place against a background of the Conservatives being committed to at least £10 billion of cuts in public spending, which will mean a lack of money for partnerships and joint enterprise, and cuts to the non-statutory elements of local authority work, which is essentially the work with this sector.
	One thing I found amusing about the document, under the heading "Restoring the lottery" on page 41, was how it deals with a bête noire of the Conservative party. Ever since the Conservatives established the lottery in 1994, many of them seem to think that they have created a Frankenstein's monster that has gone out of control. They really do not like the Big Lottery Fund, do they? They are going to replace it with a voluntary action lottery fund. Their justification for that, however, does not make sense. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) has corrected me on this matter in the past, but at the last general election they were committed to 25 per cent. of lottery funding going to each of the four good causes, which would have led to a reduction in funding for voluntary sector causes. I understand that that is no longer the policy, and I accept that, but that is part of the heritage of the process.
	What the Conservatives are proposing now is to reduce funding for the voluntary action lottery fund, compared with the Big Lottery Fund, by about 16 per cent. At the moment, 84 per cent. of all Big Lottery Fund money goes to voluntary sector organisations in one way or another—67 per cent. goes in directly, and another element goes to voluntary sectors organisations through the arts and sports bodies and so on. The Conservative document proposes to top-slice that 16 per cent. and says that we will only have a voluntary action lottery fund that operates according to different rules, to which I shall return in a moment. The Conservatives forget that an undertaking has been given by the Big Lottery Fund, backed by the Government and in response to the arrangements on Olympic funding, that the real level of funding to voluntary sector organisations in 2009, when they feel the temporary impact of Olympic funding on the Big Lottery Fund, will remain at least at current levels. It is not possible to do that if the size of the Big Lottery Fund is cut by 16 per cent. to get a leaner, slimmer voluntary action lottery fund.

Tom Levitt: The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that, which is why we have to accept that it is valid for the Big Lottery Fund to fund partnerships as well as directly funding voluntary organisations.
	The voluntary action lottery fund would be guided by a slightly different set of principles than what has gone before. The Conservatives tell us that there will be more grants for local charities and community groups, but that everything done by that fund will have to take into account the reputation of the lottery. I do not know what that means. I suspect that it means, "Unpopular causes? Bye bye—you won't get funding from the Big Lottery Fund." In the "Breakdown Britain" document published by the Conservatives in 2006, they talked about consultation on where funding should go, and of having referendums on where it should go. If we were to do that, we would be discriminating against the less popular causes such as, as I said earlier, asylum seekers, those with HIV/AIDS, and refugees. Those groups would almost certainly miss out.
	We come to the question of additionality. The document prays in aid the former Community Fund, which the document calls the communities fund, wishing that we could go back to its halcyon days. I think that the Conservatives forget who the biggest critic of the Community Fund was—for political correctness, doing the Government's bidding or non-additionality. The biggest critic of the Community Fund was the Conservative party, but now it prays it in aid. We should welcome the return of a sinner, I suppose.
	The National Lottery Act 2006 put paid to the question of additionality and complementarity in lottery and state funding. We have always had a system of complementary funding rather than additional funding, but that distinction is now clearer. Since it was set up, the Big Lottery Fund has had much more discretion and independence and has been able to demonstrate more effectively that additionality is the order of the day, and not the subsidising state mechanisms, which was the accusation made in the past. I fear for lottery funding if the Conservative plans were to come into effect.
	When looking at the ancestry of the Conservative document, I referred back to notes that I made about "Breakdown Britain" when that was published by the Conservative party in December 2006. Its very name demeans what is good about our society, our people and the fabric of the communities that hold us together; it is a title of hopelessness and despair, when there is so much out there to celebrate.
	"Breakdown Britain" was highly critical of larger charities—the Conservative party does not like the big boys in the voluntary sector. In that document, the Conservatives hinted that assets that they calculated were worth £35 billion, which were collectively held by the major charities, should be disbursed. That does not appear in their new document as far as I can see, but I should be grateful if, when he winds up the debate, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells confirmed that that is no longer his party's intention, or at least that that recommendation in "Breakdown Britain" has not been taken up, because that would be disastrous. Let me ask the House, how could a small, local organisation do what, for example, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People did when, working as a partner with the Department of Health, it delivered a £95 million programme to provide digital hearing aids through the NHS? That could not have been done by a small, local voluntary organisation; it had to rely on a larger body.
	Across the House, we recognise that three quarters of all Britons have volunteered at least once in the past 12 months and that half of our population volunteers monthly. We cannot ignore the sector—it is huge, as is its capacity to influence the success of implementation of Government policy and even the outcome of a general election, to be frank.
	That brings me to the question of campaigning. I was on the management board of the citizens advice bureau in my constituency in the early 1990s, when the CAB was threatened with loss of Government funding—it received grants directly from the then Department of Trade and Industry—if it continued to challenge Government policy on matters such as benefits. That was wrong. It was an abuse of power by the Government of the day. I am delighted to say that legislation was not needed to correct that—all we needed was a change of Government—but when the Prime Minister tells the country that the voluntary sector is the voice for the voiceless, we must listen. I am certain that my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions listen to bodies such as the citizens advice bureaux, because their feedback on how Government policy is or is not working is essential to our understanding of the effect that the Government are having on the people whom we have the privilege to govern.
	The so-called third sector encompasses not only volunteers in the classical definition, but the increasingly important community sector. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office knows of my interest in that. I applaud what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is doing to recognise the way in which volunteers and activists within communities can and should prevent any tendency to a one-size-fits-all approach and make sure that local communities get the quality of services that they need.
	We should also celebrate the success of the not-for-profit sector in general, including social enterprises and co-operatives, and in particular community interest companies. Established by the Charities Act 2006, community interest companies are run, often by volunteers, for purposes that are wholly consistent with those of the voluntary sector and are not directed by Government at all. Their work is very welcome.
	The image of volunteering has been modernised as its depth and diversity have increased. It is much more organic than the brigade of charity shop volunteers, volunteer drivers and fete organisers who have been mentioned. It includes trade union activists, magistrates, special constables and all those people who came together to make poverty history in 2006. The sector also delivers a huge proportion of this country's residential care and funding for medical research and the lifeboat service, and it acts as a champion for children, disabled people and animals. Voluntary action can be passive—signing petitions or postcards, or sponsoring a fundraising event—or active. The services that volunteers provide can be stand-alone or complementary to services provided by the public sector; they can even be integrated within public sector provision. I challenge anyone to go for an out-patient appointment at a typical acute hospital and not encounter several volunteers providing key services as they always have done, whether by raising money for a new machine, making tea, selling flowers, or carrying X-rays from one department to another. Volunteers are everywhere, and any policy on the voluntary sector must recognise its huge diversity.
	Where I want to praise the Conservative document published yesterday is on its unequivocal statement that voluntary action must be voluntary. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families about that, and I believe that I have received an undertaking in response to the sector's worry that by integrating volunteering too far into the curriculum, its voluntary nature is lost, which can reduce the quality of the experience. Although it is difficult, by and large schools manage to encourage and practise active citizenship, which is not quite the same as volunteering, although it certainly includes volunteering. We must find ways to encourage, promote and give young people opportunities to experience active citizenship without treading on the sector's toes and making people volunteer.
	My conclusions on what I want to see in future come in several sections and I suspect that they will find favour on all three Front Benches. In service provision, it should be easier for the voluntary sector to compete with the private and public sectors, either through contracts or through partnership. Means should be found better to ensure that full cost recovery is built into such contracts—at the moment, that cannot be guaranteed, in part because of the skills set available in the sector. The length of contracts should be extended—that has happened and is happening, but it should continue. Now, the lottery sometimes gives five-year grants for programmes, instead of the three-year, two-year or one-year grants that used to be the norm in local government. Local government now has three-year funding, so there is no reason why it should not fund local projects on a three-year basis, rather than the traditional one-year basis.
	The next group of conclusions deals with the other funding of volunteering, outside service provision. Better communication is needed within the sector and between the sector and its partners to ensure more equitable and transparent access to grants and funding streams. It is essential that the sector has a healthy organisational core and a diverse funding base. I am excited by the some of the work that has been done on endowments, and the organisation that I chair—the Community Development Foundation—is working with the Office of the Third Sector on that and other schemes. Endowment, combined with social ownership of assets within communities, is a way to ensure independence and sustainability of funding, especially for smaller organisations.
	We need to find ways to promote both giving generally and payroll giving. A minute ago, I said that we should not force people to volunteer, but let us make it a bit easier for them to be payroll givers, especially in the light of the welcome announcement in the Budget that the effect of the reduction in income tax will not be felt on gift aid for three years. Nevertheless, it will be felt in three years and we need to find ways in which to mitigate that. If we have changed the basis of funding by that time and, through diversity of funding, are not so reliant on gift aid, so be it. If gift aid is so big that the difference will not cause much damage, so be it.
	We must fulfil our responsibility to promote volunteering as an end in itself. It is a healthy thing for people to do. I find that the communities that do not work are those where the community and voluntary sectors do not exist. That is as true in developing countries as it is in parts of Britain. We need to do more work to encourage the voluntary sector in some of our developing country partners, where resources are often not recycled in the community in the way in which the voluntary sector can achieve.
	I applaud the moves that the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned, of which I was not aware, on the five days' volunteering in some Departments. Let us keep on with that, encourage other employers to take—dare I say it?—an American approach to volunteering and make corporate commitments, which people in companies deliver in their own time.
	There must be absolute clarity at the interface between benefits and volunteering, and improved user-friendliness of the Criminal Records Bureau system. I welcome the announcements that have been made and understand that there are more to come in the summer. Formal recognition of skills acquisition must also be available.
	It is an exciting time for the sector. It is good to see the consensus that has largely been expressed today. However, I find it difficult to forget that someone, who shall remain nameless, once said that there was no such thing as society, and I do not intend the House to forget it. As Members of Parliament, we all know that we have thriving voluntary sectors in our constituencies and we ignore them at our peril. We engage with them because they are what citizenship is about and because that is what we should do.

Alistair Burt: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) and the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). My hon. Friend spoke warmly of his constituents and his personal experience. The hon. Gentleman and I spent many hours on Baroness Neuberger's commission. I pay tribute to his extensive knowledge of the subject and his deep commitment to it.
	This has been a good debate, and we have broadly stuck to the convention of recognising that the major parties share a great deal on volunteering, and so gleefully falling on our differences and spending a lot of time exploiting them. This debate has been given spice by the publication yesterday of the excellent paper by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) on volunteering, which threw those on the Government Benches into something of a tizz. Now that the Conservative party speaks extensively on social issues, the Government think that tanks are being parked on their lawn. They therefore respond, forgetting that it was not their lawn in the first place—it is more like a common, which we have all occupied, but on which the Labour party occasionally squats and pretends to claim exclusive rights, which it has never had.
	Consequently, a frisson of excitement is still felt among Labour Members when we take them on, drawing on the vast experience of Conservative Members and representatives, and people throughout the country who support the Conservative party who have always been involved in social issues and are pleased to see their party speaking out on them.
	I shall come to the Minister's remarks shortly, because they have required me to alter somewhat those that I was going to make. I noticed that he fizzed like a decent bottle of Spanish cava when my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight talked about the need for the Government to stand back and not get involved. That reminded me of a quotation from someone who gave evidence to the commission. We spend a lot of time saying what we think about volunteering, but the commission amassed a great deal of evidence in the past 12 to 18 months from people actively engaged in volunteering. Their comments deserve a hearing, in order that they are not missed. I have a lovely quotation here, on page 39 of the evidence, from an elected member of a public sector organisation:
	"Keep out of it—let the organisations get on with doing what they are doing. Don't put so much red tape on them and just let them do what they want to do. Any structuring and you will lose what volunteers you have. Why should I spend my free time taking a lot of stupid orders from a lot of bureaucrats, when I could be retired and sitting on a sun-drenched beach?"
	I suspect that the sentiment that my hon. Friend expressed is not held solely by him or Conservative Members, and that it was not the impression that the commission formed, either.
	I shall return to the evidence later. By taking on my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), the Minister sought to project an image of the Government's relationship with the voluntary sector with which he is entirely comfortable, but which is not shared by the sector. I do not minimise things that are going well or areas where the voluntary sector is working entirely comfortably, but the sector wants to take on the Government on a number of issues. I hate the phrase "a sense of complacency", but there were elements in the Minister's response to my hon. Friend that smacked a bit of, "I think we've got it right and I'm not listening to anything else."

Alistair Burt: As the great Tony Hancock once said in "Hancock's Half Hour", "Do you know, that could've been me talking." Of course, the hon. Gentleman gets it absolutely right. A lot of the comments made by the voluntary sector about the Government could indeed have been said about any Government, because there is a necessary tension in the relationship. I want to bring out the fact that, because the Minister sought to emphasise the difference in approach between the Government and us, he missed the fact that some of the issues being raised by the voluntary sector are partly due to the approach taken by the Government. Therefore, they have a special responsibility to deal with the situation. However, the hon. Gentleman is of course correct that there are always tensions and accountabilities.

Tom Levitt: I can confirm that the hon. Gentleman and I spent an enjoyable 18 months on the commission. I hope that he, like me, will welcome not only the outcome of the commission, but the Government's response, which was positive and supportive. To put the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) asked slightly differently, if the Government want something done and make money available to do it, it is surely quite legitimate for a voluntary sector organisation to have to make adaptations in order to take advantage of that funding. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that mission creep should only ever come from the voluntary organisations, rather than being imposed on them.

Alistair Burt: In answer to the hon. Gentleman's first point, the Government's response to the commission was indeed good, but Julia spent so many hours with the Prime Minister that the dear man was probably browbeaten and could only respond generously to what she had said.
	To respond to the hon. Gentleman's second point, yes, but it is all a question of degree. If the parameters are set and the voluntary sector is given the opportunity to take on a role that has been broadly set out by the Government, that is all well and good. However, we have picked up a concern that the requirements, rules and targets set out under a Government course of action for which money is available to the voluntary sector have gone a little too far. The Government should be warned about that, and I hope that my colleagues have picked that up as something that we would not do when we get the opportunity.
	In the relatively brief time available to me—I know that both Front-Bench spokesmen will want to respond to what has been a good debate—let me say that, like most colleagues, I draw much of my experience of the voluntary sector from my constituency. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to those who work in our constituencies in a voluntary capacity.
	Among those that I know best are the sea cadets in Biggleswade, a uniformed organisation of which I am the president that does remarkable work in the town and represents well the uniformed organisations that do so much good work throughout the country. Carers in Bedfordshire is a service set up by Yvonne Clark, a dedicated woman, to look after those who care not only in my constituency, but throughout the country, and to provide a meeting point where best practice can be spread for such work. Headway is the organisation that looks after those with head injuries. Chris Batten does remarkable work with them. I was fortunate to run this year's London marathon on behalf of St. John's hospice in Moggerhanger and Sue Ryder Care. My wife has chaired Home-Start in Bedford for many years.
	A variety of organisations are involved, and I suspect that I am not unique in my experience. Every Member of the House will know half a dozen organisations well, and even more tolerably well, because of personal connections, which we all attract. We know that they give us the sense of what voluntary organisations do in our constituencies, and how remarkably valuable they are.
	Sport is greatly important to the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed). The Bedfordshire football association does good work through football and my friends Phil Dean and Martin Humberstone do a great deal through Biggleswade swimming club. Sport does so much for so many people who are looking for guidance, and I echo the comments made by a number of others about the need for more adult volunteers to coach and to get involved. What youngsters need most is for grown-ups to be involved in what they are doing; that is what they are looking for.
	I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, as we would all do, in thanking the volunteers who work for us on the street, supporting political parties. That is not the most popular form of voluntary activity. I regret the fact that MPs being the target for popular attacks reflects on those who give their time to work for political parties, making it harder to recruit them and making it difficult for them to feel valued for what they do. Those who put many pieces of paper through people's doors, as they have recently in Crewe and Nantwich and as I believe they will do shortly in other parts of the country, are to be immensely valued. We very much appreciate what they do.
	I would like to spend a few minutes discussing the commission and thanking it for the work that it did, as well as those who contributed to it. We found volunteering to be in rude health throughout the country, and we found exactly what hon. Members have spoken of—tremendous commitment from individuals to what they are doing and no need for direction from any great authority. Those people are committed to what they are doing because of their wellspring of need to respond to their neighbours and build a better society.
	People know that what they are doing is not just about them; it is about what they can give to others. In volunteering, they have found an opportunity to train, give to others and ensure that a cohesive society, which is not the same thing as the state, is working effectively. We are all delighted that we found that, and I have no wish to go over the statistics that colleagues have already referred to.
	Psychologically, volunteering is crucial for a society that is obsessed with work and the working culture, as well as the number of hours that people devote to them. It is essential that there is another outlet for our energy, and volunteering fulfils that remarkable need.
	A number of barriers were mentioned by those we spoke to, which have nothing to do with the Government and are not their responsibility. Lifestyle is one. I represent a rural area and a rural community. There are fewer jobs in rural areas than there were. Think of the change in the nature of society over the last 50 or 100 years. People commute more and spend more time travelling. No longer do they finish work locally at 5 or 6 o'clock, have their tea and get ready to go out and contribute to local activities. They get home at half-past 7 or 8 o'clock. They are tired. After they have eaten, the evening is gone. We are all suffering from the problem that that causes, in that there are not enough people who are able to commit themselves to such activities.
	The problem of sustainability was mentioned earlier. People cannot make a long-term commitment to do something day after day. I spoke to the leader of Bolton lads' club, who told me that the club, which has about 3,000 members, is successful because, "We operate whenever the schools don't. Every night of the week, every day during the holidays, we're there, because we can rely on a large number of people to give us time day after day." It is not like running a youth club once a week or once a fortnight, with attendance inevitably dropping off. There is that commitment from volunteers, which means so much.
	I shall come to rules and regulations, red tape and health and safety in a moment. The onus placed on trustees is much greater than it used to be. It is harder for some people to accept the obligations, because they suddenly realise that they might end up more committed—financially and in other ways—than would have been the case some years ago. Being a trustee of a voluntary group is no longer the job it was. That issue ought to be looked at by Members on both sides of the House to see whether we can in some way relieve people of those responsibilities. That matter was referred to more than once in the evidence given to the commission.
	May I say a word about Government responsibility? As I said, to some degree I have changed what I was going to say. I think that the Minister was too defensive, perhaps because he was stung by the document that we have produced. He deserves to listen a little to what those involved in voluntary activities think of what is happening out there. A section in the results of the public consultation is entitled, "The relationship between Volunteering and Government". Some of it is positive. Page 88 deals with positive experiences. However, pages 89 to 113 set out a rather different story of problems that volunteers experience, which they put down to things that the Government might do something about. They include the planning process, continuity between initiatives, consultation and communication with volunteer-involving agencies, funding time scales, reporting and monitoring time scales, focus on targets, lack of resources to capitalise on initiatives, the nature of the volunteering placements available and the focus of some programmes.
	Let me quote, if I may, people who spent their time and gave their commitment to contributing to the consultation process. They deserve to be heard. On the planning process, an employee of a national voluntary sector organisation said that
	"my organisation has participated in a number of government programmes. As a whole they tend to be poorly conceived, aimed at grabbing attention, and misunderstand volunteering and the voluntary sector".
	A local branch of a national charity considered that there is
	"a confusion of initiatives from central government and local authorities...there is no overall plan or structure".
	We have already discussed one or two individual initiatives. I quote an employee of a national voluntary sector network organisation:
	"There has been huge investment in new volunteering initiatives over the years from the Experience Corps to v which has taken little account of existing volunteering experience or of volunteering organisations or structures".
	There is no criticism of that investment being made, but there is criticism of failure to recognise what was already there and, therefore, money committed. So often, for the Government it is all about how much money has been spent, not necessarily what has been done or achieved. The concern is that money and time are being spent that need not be.
	The document also says:
	"A further area of criticism related to funding timescales. A complaint voiced frequently was that the time allowed to apply for funding from government volunteering programmes is sometimes too short".
	It goes on to supply quotes from various people.
	On the focus on targets, Minister, the document says:
	"Government funding programmes place too much emphasis on targets, ie number of volunteers placed. Respondents considered that stress on targets can prove detrimental to the quality of the volunteering experience. This appears to be a particular criticism of Millennium Volunteers: 'target driven with emphasis on quantity not quality'."
	Another employee from a public sector organisation said:
	"As a result, 'organisations who are unlikely to provide a volunteering opportunity for the required length of time or potential volunteers that are unable to make the time commitment that would meet the terms of the definition will both miss out from the support of the Volunteer Centre...it feels as if government can move the goalposts but we can't'."
	I shall refer to a final quote on volunteering policy, which will be of interest to the Minister because it is rather wide-ranging. An employee of a national voluntary organisation for older people said:
	"I have no sense that there exists a strategic volunteering policy within government, a roadmap if you will, that sees volunteers and volunteering as an evolving, interlinked creature, that recognises the impact interventions (such as funding) have, not just on the targeted group but also the potential negative impact it may have on non-targeted groups".
	That is a selection of quotes; there are a lot. Of course, a lot has been done that is positive—we understand that—but the Minister, in his determination to have a go at a document produced by my colleagues, which he has barely had a chance to consider, was over-optimistic in his view of how the voluntary sector views the Government.
	As the hon. Member for Loughborough rightly pointed out, much of this criticism could be directed at any Government. If we were in government we would have to take full note of the views of people who spend their lives in organisations, either as volunteers or as employees. I would be disappointed if we glossed over criticisms and did not accept them as being genuine.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) observed that the philosophical difference between our parties related to the intention of volunteers. It seems to me that the Government focus on their importance in relation to the process of delivering services, while we concentrate on their importance in relation to the end product. What matters is the quality of services delivered to the people for whom we are concerned and for whom we have responsibility. Are those services effective? In broken-down families, is the necessary work being done to mend people and keep them together? Are old people helped by what we are trying to do? This is not about a process, but about outcomes. I think that too often the Government concentrate on the process—hence their self-admiration in the context of the amount of money given rather than what is actually delivered.
	My colleagues' approach to the document published yesterday indicated our interest in using the freshness of voluntary groups—large and small, but in many instances community-based—to deliver what they do best without being excessively trammelled by Government targets, regulation and direction. Yes, there must be accountability, but we must not lose that freshness of approach. According to what we hear from voluntary groups, they feel that the Government have overdone it—for all sorts of reasons, but perhaps because they cannot quite let go in this sector as in others. That is the main difference between us. My hon. Friends have responded to that desire for freshness—the desire to allow people to do what they do best; the desire for the professionals to be professional in public services, and for the volunteers to deliver what they know so much about.
	I believe that we can set those people free. If the Government do not listen to the criticisms coming from the sector, they will miss an opportunity to do something rather better in the couple of years remaining to them. We will make the very most of that opportunity on the basis of the information that the voluntary sector has already given us.

Greg Clark: It is a pleasure to be able to mark national volunteering week with a debate on the subject. It is good that the Government did not table an amendment, thus enabling us to unite on a motion that draws attention to the contribution made by voluntary organisations, and specifically by volunteers, to our national life. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) quoted the NCVO's figure of £27 billion. That is a colossal figure, but the real contribution lies in the transformation of the lives of the people whom we see in our constituencies.
	The great attraction of today's debate is that although not many Members have had a chance to make speeches or intervene, we have been given so many examples that capture in a microcosm the widespread contributions made by volunteers. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) spoke of the great work done in prisons to get people back on to the road and to prevent recidivism. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) told us of the signal contribution that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, free of any requirement to do what it does, makes to our national life. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) talked about the Scouts.
	The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) praised the work done by charity shops, but also referred to more quirkily named charities such as the Barnes Workhouse Fund. Its Victorian name may appear somewhat archaic, but I gather from the hon. Lady that it continues to do fantastic work. The hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) mentioned the RNID, a national charity. It was clear from what we heard that, from national level to a very small level, the sector makes a colossal difference. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) took the prize in listing the litany of organisations with which he is involved: the Sea Cadets, the Bedfordshire carers, Headway, the hospice movement, Sue Ryder Care and Homestarts, with which his wife does such great work.
	All that demonstrated the great variety of contributions that we have the opportunity to make through volunteering. One of the unsung contributions to our national life is made by volunteers in the public services. Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, for example, has pioneered the use of volunteers in the delivery of care and making life better for patients. The Kent and Sussex hospital in my constituency has just embarked on a pilot enabling volunteers to become "supper-time companions", giving their time to be sociable with patients who may have no one to talk to during the day and ensuring that they have company, which is good for their morale.
	The debate has given us an opportunity to record our appreciation of the work of the voluntary sector, and in that context I found the tone of the Minister's opening speech slightly regrettable. We were careful to table a motion that was not partisan and reflected broad cross-party support, but he seems to have the knack of rendering divisive issues on which I think there ought to be a degree of consensus. I think he was wrong to ascribe to a Labour Government in particular the fact that the voluntary sector is flourishing; volunteers throughout the country may well resent the fact that their efforts, voluntarily given, have been described by a Minister as in some way down to the activities of the Government. Those people are there because they have the instinct to take voluntary action, and I do not think they will take kindly to having it usurped by the Minister, in words at least.
	The Minister entertained us yesterday with his response to something that he had barely read. He said on the radio that our document represented a return to the Victorian age for charities, but that half what was in it had already been proposed by the Government. That strikes me as being in the long and admirable tradition begun by the former Deputy Prime Minister, who famously said that the green belt was a Labour achievement and that we must build on it. If the current Prime Minister is seeking a replacement for that much-missed figure, he may have found one in the Minister if he continues to make statements like that.
	We have discussed the contribution that the sector currently makes, and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire spoke of the rude health that it enjoys, but there is still a shortage of volunteers. According to a survey of people who manage volunteers, 59 per cent. said that they experienced difficulty in recruiting enough of them. The Morgan report—an excellent report—said that that was particularly true of young adults, which was confirmed by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate. The Scout Association, a fantastic organisation, has a waiting list of 40,000 children and young people for the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, because there are not enough adult volunteers.

Greg Clark: The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. The commission has helpfully suggested, and spread the notion, that employers should play their part. If work life is impinging more on what was previously leisure time that could have been devoted to volunteering, perhaps a bit more give and take is required, and people, especially young adults, should be allowed to take time off. That is one of the more welcome contributions, which we have sought to echo.
	It is concerning that the number of young people who volunteer seems to be static. In an nfpSynergy study, between November 2006 and November 2007, the number of young people who said that they had not volunteered in the past three months had increased—it had done so only marginally, but it had not declined—from 79 per cent. to 80 per cent. It is important to get more people, especially young adults, involved in volunteering. That is particularly true in the volunteering deserts, as they have been described. The parts of the country that would benefit most from volunteering are those where the level of volunteering is half of that in less-deprived areas.
	Committed volunteering is important. It will be fantastic if people try their hand at volunteering this week, in national volunteering week, but it is crucial to the running of scout groups, and even more so for organisations such as the Bolton lads' club, which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire mentioned, to get people to commit to volunteering regularly. I completely agree with the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) that that will require a change in the work-life balance to which people are subjected.
	Certain issues hold back further possibilities in the sector. For example, we have heard a lot about over-regulation. I assume that the Government agree on that point, put in a reasonable way, as it is in the motion, which mentions the
	"bureaucratic barriers that lie between volunteers and volunteering."
	I hope that that issue is not in contention across the House.
	The Commission on the Future of Volunteering, on which the hon. Member for High Peak and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire served with distinction, said time and again that it had heard stories of bureaucratic hurdles. The motivation for having those hurdles might have been good, but they have degenerated into caricatures of risk-aversion. We must act on that issue. CRB checks are a particular bugbear, so I am delighted to hear that the long-awaited reforms were published today, and I look forward to reading them.
	The benefit system has been mentioned once or twice, but not too much. However, the Morgan inquiry, on which the hon. Member for Loughborough served, talked about the rigid package of bureaucracy that surrounds the unemployment benefit system and dissuades young adults from volunteering. It is important that we address that problem. The rules might have changed but the orders have not got out there. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the volunteer centre in Nuneaton said:
	"In the last 6 weeks, 3 of our volunteers have had their benefits stopped"
	despite completing the necessary forms. The letter went on to say:
	"Recruiting volunteers has never been an easy task, however with more and more volunteers experiencing difficulties with their benefits and the DW&P, that task is much harder."
	We need to change the way in which we communicate people's entitlements.
	On Government initiatives, the commission highlighted the views of many in the sector. For example, it picked up a lot of criticism about several aspects of the Government's initiatives to promote volunteering. I do not doubt that those initiatives had the best of purposes, and I shall not repeat the quotes that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire gave from the groups that took the trouble to give evidence to the committee, but it is wrong for the Minister to dismiss that point so readily as having being dreamt up or motivated in a partisan way.
	When it comes to solutions, we need to do exactly what the Neuberger commission recommended, which is ensure that volunteering
	"becomes part of the DNA of our society".
	A culture change is needed, but it must be voluntary. We cannot compel people to volunteer. Members on both sides of the House made the point that it is important that the party in government should draw back from seeming to suggest that volunteering might be compulsory. We want to spread a social norm of volunteering, so that it happens in all sectors. There are some fantastic examples of companies that give time to their employees to volunteer, and they benefit substantially from that. We have heard that KPMG gives three and a half hours a month, and we have suggested that there should be a minimum commitment across government for eight hours a year. The Cabinet Office rightly makes a commitment to do that, but we need to make sure that, at the very least, everyone knows, across government, that they have the right to take eight hours a year to make a difference to their communities. It is empowering that they should know that.
	We need to get rid of bureaucratic checks. CRB checks have been mentioned, and we will look at the matter with great interest. Benefit complexity has also been mentioned in that regard. It is also important to recognise training. The Morgan inquiry recommended that the skills that young adults can gain from volunteering should be recognised. In response to the comments of the hon. Member for High Peak, I point out that when we say that that should be owned by the sector, we do not mean to say that it should not relate to the world of employment—far from it. However, we do not think that it should be imposed on the sector by the Government. It should be driven by the sector and by the enthusiasm of those in it.

Greg Clark: I do agree with that recommendation. We have made a suggestion in our report that we should work with the sector to see whether we can develop a system for recognising that training. Training is absolutely key.
	The question of investing directly in the grass roots has come up, and v has also been mentioned. That organisation has a particular responsibility, because the £117 million of public funds that is going into it over three years is a lot of money. It needs to demonstrate that the value that it offers is proportionate to the amount of public support that it is receiving. The alternative would have been to put that money into existing organisations, such as the Scouts. The Scouts would benefit from having access to even a fraction of that amount, to enable them to employ more development officers in areas where there are not enough volunteers to lead scout groups, and we need to be convinced that that would not be a more effective use of the money. We wish v well, but the evidence to date is far from conclusive. A lot of the evidence given to us and to the various commissions suggests at least that the jury is still out in regard to v. In particular, over the past year, the fact that there has been no material increase in youth volunteering, despite the considerable funding that has gone into the organisation in its first year, gives cause for concern.
	Volunteers deserve the recognition that they are getting this week, and I am pleased that we have had the opportunity to express that recognition in Parliament. I believe that volunteers are both the beginning and the end for us in civil society. Volunteers were always the first to open schools and hospitals, and the first providers of relief to the poor. Today, they are still the first to spot patterns of deprivation developing, and problems that need to be resolved. They are still the first to take action on some of the sources of social breakdown. They have always been there first.
	It is also important to reflect that volunteers are always there at the end. Often, it is volunteers who are there as a last resort when all else fails. They are the last resort for the vulnerable and marginalised people who slip through the net that the state erects to catch them. Outside this country, volunteers are the last gasp of civilisation when Governments have ignored and turned their back on their own people. No sector is more central to our national life, and it is important that we have recognised it today. We have made some suggestions in our Green Paper on how we can strengthen the support and help that the Government can give to the sector. I look forward to the Minister's response to the debate and thank him for his agreement to make this a cross-party motion today.

Phil Hope: The complete absence of any acknowledgement of the campaigning role that volunteers individually and collectively play in changing society is exactly where the Opposition's policy is fundamentally flawed, because it does not embrace the full range of volunteering opportunities and the role that the third sector has played in bringing about massive changes over the last century and a half.
	The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) criticises me, as did the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), for putting on record the success of the Labour Government, under whom volunteering and third sector organisations have genuinely flourished over the decade. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells even suggested that I should be appointed Deputy Prime Minister. That particular suggestion may have some merit.
	Without wishing to be too tendentious, let me say that the number of registered charities has risen over the last decade from 120,000 to 160,000. The number of people volunteering formally or informally at least once a month has risen from 18.4 million in 2001 to 20.4 million in 2005. Research into charities estimates that turnover has increased from around £16 billion to more than £27 billion over the last decade. The work force has increased by around a fifth. I cannot agree with the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), for Tunbridge Wells or for North-East Bedfordshire that we do not have a strong and flourishing third sector, brought about by the policies to create the environment in which that it can flourish.

Nigel Waterson: I am grateful for that. In fairness, Ministers have attempted to make the process easier, and to bring in other benefits where people are claiming pension credit. We may hear a bit about that in the speech of the Minister for Pensions Reform. As my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) says, there is still some way to go in that regard.
	The result of all the problems that I outlined is that nearly £5 billion a year in benefits goes unclaimed by older people and remains in the Treasury. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that if all those benefits were claimed, it would lift 500,000 pensioners out of poverty at a stroke. The report's authors pointed out the effect that higher pension income among new retirees has had on relative poverty levels—that is, if it was not for the massive success, under previous Conservative Governments, of encouraging private and occupational pension saving, the poverty figures would be even worse.  [Interruption.] The IFS concluded:
	"If the government wishes to see pensioner poverty continue to fall, it will have to find more money for pensioners in what will already be a tight spending review".
	Did the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) wish to intervene?

Nigel Waterson: That is a fair point. My understanding is that there are moves afoot to tackle the issue. I think I am right in saying that council tax benefit has the worst take-up rate of any means-tested benefit, and I have tried to explain why. Anything that we can do to improve that, especially as council tax levels rise so much, would be welcomed in all parts of the House. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.
	In opposition, the present Prime Minister spent much of his time telling the Labour party that it could not promise to restore the link between the basic state pension and average earnings. The Government are the Johnny-come-latelys to the issue. We were the ones who promised to restore the link in our last manifesto. There is a great deal of mythology about the link and the scrapping of it, which we have gone into before and no doubt can again.
	As I understand it, the Government's current position is that they intend to restore the link in 2012 or 2015, or possibly not even then if it is unaffordable. We have already legislated in the Pensions Act 2007 to do that. What we need is the trigger to be pulled by the Government. [Hon. Members: "You abolished it."] I personally did not, but I know what hon. Members mean.
	A couple of weeks ago, the Government had the opportunity to tell the House and the wider public precisely when they intend to redeem that promise. They ducked that opportunity and whipped their Members to vote the amendment down—another example of dithering by the Government. No wonder Age Concern concluded that
	"no joined up, targeted initiative exists to reach pensioners who live in poverty."
	What an indictment.
	There is another problem, linked directly to means-testing. It is the corrosive effect that that has on saving for retirement. Why should people put money aside now when they cannot be sure that they will be better off in retirement? No wonder the savings ratio has dropped to an historic low. The Government are storing up more potential poverty for the future because of the decline in pension saving. The current poverty statistics, as I explained, are significantly flattered by the success of previous Conservative Governments in encouraging private and occupational pensions.
	As part of their attempt to repair the ravages of private pension saving since they came to power, the Government are setting up personal accounts. As the official Opposition, we have broadly supported the Turner package of reforms, but we want to ensure that personal accounts are indeed targeted on low and middle earners who have no pension savings. We have argued long and hard that personal accounts could well fail if the level of means-testing is not much reduced from present levels. The Pensions Policy Institute in particular has done a great deal of work to identify the at-risk groups who may be no better off or even worse off by being auto-enrolled into personal accounts. I am delighted that Ministers are now taking the matter seriously and have embarked on a programme of work with us, among others, to tackle the issue.
	When it comes to pensions, confidence is a vital ingredient in getting people into the pension saving habit. Nothing has done more to undermine confidence than the Government's shameful dithering for more than four years about giving proper compensation to the 160,000 pension victims who lost their pensions through no fault of their own. The Government got there in the end, and should be commended for that, but they should not have taken so long or fought so hard against the move.
	The issue of fuel poverty was raised earlier, and it is at the top of everyone's list of concerns at the moment. On the most recent figures, some 2.25 million older households are in the fuel poverty trap, and no doubt that figure is spiralling upwards almost daily. Indeed, the Government's own energy White Paper makes it clear that there is no prospect of their hitting their target of removing all vulnerable households from fuel poverty by 2010. The issue matters a lot, not just because it causes anxiety and stress for older people, but because last year there were 22,300 unnecessary winter deaths among older people in this country.
	In the face of those unprecedented challenges, what do the Government do? They have cut spending on the Warm Front scheme over the next three years by 25 per cent. in real terms, and have done so in the teeth of advice from the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group that the bare minimum required was to maintain spending at current levels. No wonder the Government are now being taken to court over their fuel poverty strategy by Help the Aged and Friends of the Earth. What do we hear from Ministers? We hear a lot of rhetoric, empty gestures and announcements, designed to get them out of a problem today rather than to afford a long-term solution.

Nigel Waterson: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall make a little more progress; I have given way quite a lot.
	Ministers' desperate pleas to energy companies have largely fallen on deaf ears. Their idea of monitoring fuel bills smacks more of Big Brother than of a serious attempt to tackle the problem. The so-called "extra" £225 million is not new money at all—it was first announced in April. Age Concern has described it as
	"just a drop in the ocean."
	It goes on:
	"The government is quite simply failing the most vulnerable by not taking more action on this issue."
	When we look at the figures, we see that the extra money will help only 100,000—just 2 per cent.—of the 4.5 million people in fuel poverty. Just the other day, there was another panic announcement from the Minister, on the issue of emergency vouchers to benefit claimants older than 70, to help with energy bills. We, of course, welcome any help for hard-pressed pensioners, but what was announced looks like another one-year-only, short-term fix. It is difficult not to agree with Help the Aged, which said:
	"The government cannot shirk its own responsibility to tackle this serious and growing problem. It must stop relying on 'quick wins' to resolve a long-term problem."
	That sounds to me like new Labour's epitaph.

Mike O'Brien: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"welcomes the policies of this Government to tackle pensioner poverty, which have lifted around two million pensioners out of absolute poverty and over one million out of relative poverty, and have led to spending of around £12 billion extra on pensioners compared with 1997; recognises that pension credit allows pensioners to live with dignity and rewards those who have saved for their own retirement; acknowledges the introduction of and increases to the winter fuel payment and further measures to ensure pensioners can keep warm; notes the provision of free off-peak bus travel granting freedom to pensioners and ensuring that they are not isolated in their own community; welcomes the long-term framework for pensions through the Pensions Act 2007, including relinking the basic state pension to average earnings and ensuring equality for women and carers with men by 2025; and further welcomes the private pension reforms in the Pensions Bill which will enable individuals to take personal responsibility for their own retirement."
	I waited in vain for the enunciation of the principles that we were going to hear—I expected something. Do Conservative Members really expect us to believe that they have somehow changed—that they have been transformed from the hard-faced Thatcherites who removed the earnings link and slashed pensioners' incomes into compassionate Conservatives? They delude themselves that their record of 18 years in government can so easily be consigned to the dustbin of history. Pensioners, above all, will remember. They lived through the Thatcher and Major periods, and they know that at the next election the choice will be clear—Conservative or Labour. The party that broke the link with earnings, or the party committed to restoring it? The party that consigned millions of pensioners to poverty, or the party that has lifted more than 2 million out of absolute poverty? The party that forced pensioners to live on £68 a week, or the party spending an extra £12 billion a year so that no pensioner need live on less than £124 per week?
	Let me say to the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), who sought to remind us of history, that in the year 1988-89, cold weather payments from the Conservative Government amounted to the grand sum of £2,510, compared with the party that in 2008-09 will pay £2 billion in winter fuel payments. That is the sort of thing that pensioners remember.

Mike O'Brien: The point that I was making is that this Government are making payments of £2 billion to pensioners in winter fuel payments and the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported were making payments of £2,500.
	There is a choice: the party that left thousands of pensioners to freeze in their homes because they could not pay their fuel bills, then put VAT on fuel, and then tried to double it to 17.5 per cent., or the party that has provided winter fuel payments to keep pensioners warm by helping them to pay their bills, and that after 1997 cut VAT on fuel from 8 per cent. to 5 per cent. Just imagine what fuel bills would be like today with VAT at 17.5 per cent. if John Major had got his way.

Michael Penning: The Minister is quite right: I am going to raise the matter of the 700 constituents who had their pensions stolen from them, and the 140,000 pensioners throughout the country—the minimum amount—who had their pensions stolen. They had to wait five years for the Government to come up with the compensation that they deserved, after the Government had been dragged through the courts, and in front of the ombudsman, and found guilty. What would the Minister say to those of my constituents who are still waiting for compensation today? Some of them will be taxed at a rate of 40 per cent., not the 20 per cent. rate at which they should have been taxed at the time.

Mike O'Brien: As it happens, this morning, I signed the order that will ensure that those payments are made. They should receive their payments very quickly. We took the order through the House recently so those payments should be made very shortly.

Mike O'Brien: On the reasons why the situation arose, and why his constituents had some difficulties when their pension scheme went down, he should remember that the regime under which the difficulties arose was created by the previous Conservative Government. His party is not without fault in that matter, and my party did arrange to compensate his constituents. On taxation, the people involved will be taxed, but will be able to refer that tax back to the period during which they would have otherwise received their payments. They will have to make arrangements with the taxman about how those payments are reclaimed, and they will be able to do so at the end of the year. We have, as he knows, consulted various people affected, including some of his constituents, to see what the best arrangements would be to deal with the matter.

Mike O'Brien: Look at the record of this Government. This is the Government who have sought to help the poorest pensioners by substantially increasing, especially through pension credit, the amount of money that goes to them. Half the £12 billion increase—

Mike O'Brien: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to make progress.
	We shall do that through data sharing with energy companies, so that the poorest pensioners can get more help with their fuel bills. Those measures come in addition to this year's payment, alongside the winter fuel payment, of an extra £100 for pensioner households with someone over 80, bringing their payment up to £400, and an extra £50 for households with someone over 60, bringing their payment up to £250. The Government have also agreed with the energy companies that, in addition, the companies will increase their funding for social assistance by £225 million, thereby reducing the bills of many vulnerable pensioners.
	The energy companies want to know where the poorest pensioners are, so that they can get them on the cheapest tariffs. We are prepared to share data with the energy companies through a trusted intermediary to enable the most vulnerable to have access to free home insulation, a beneficial fuel tariff, or even a cash rebate on their fuel bills. Allowing data sharing with energy companies is controversial, but as Age Concern, Help the Aged and others have said, the pressure of rising energy prices justifies that action.
	In the Pensions Bill, which is now in the other place, we intend to take a power to tell the energy companies which of their customers is on pension credit. The Bill will not be passed until November, so in the meantime, I have offered the energy companies the facility this winter to send a mailshot or voucher to those in receipt of pension credit. Whether it will go to people aged over 70 is still being discussed. It is now up to the energy companies to take that up as part of their £225 million contribution. At a time of rising fuel bills, we are providing practical help for pensioners.

Pete Wishart: Is not the Minister ashamed that, under a new Labour Government, 47 per cent. of single pensioners and 324,000 pensioner households in Scotland are in fuel poverty? Is not it odd—even perverse—that that is the case in oil-rich Scotland, a net exporter of energy?

Mike O'Brien: I certainly do want to contest that statistic, because it distorts the poverty data and the EUROSTAT statistics. Because we are a wealthier country, our poverty level in the EUROSTAT statistics is set higher than that for most European countries. That is the way the EUROSTAT statistics are set. For example, the UK poverty line is 13 times higher than Bulgaria's and seven times higher than Poland's. Our pensioners are therefore much better off than those in most other countries. When we take into account the basic state pension, pension credit, free TV licences, winter fuel payments and private pensions, our pensioners are better off than those in, say, France, Sweden, Denmark and similar countries. Our pensioners are much better off than those in most other European countries. Indeed, we are about fifth in the league and have moved way up since the Government came to power. The hon. Gentleman needs to be aware of that.
	Another issue that the hon. Gentleman raised was council tax, so let me say something about that. I know that pensioners are concerned about council tax increases—often, increases come from Conservative councils. We recognise that we need to help the most vulnerable, so this year is the 11th year in which we have increased local authority grants by more than the rate of inflation. By 2010-11, the increase in Government grant for local services since 1997 will be 45 per cent. higher than inflation. Council tax benefit is also important, because it goes to 2.5 million pensioner households.
	I heard hon. Members' comments on the difference between rural and urban areas. However, I represent a rural area in Warwickshire where, during the mid-90s, when John Major was Prime Minister, we had to join marches against school cuts. Teachers in Warwickshire were losing their jobs hand over fist as a result of cuts in local authority grant to that rural shire county. Under John Major, there was an 11 per cent. cut in policing. Today, police numbers are well up. There are no such marches or demonstrations at the moment, because we are better funding local authorities than the previous Conservative Government did, and if we had policies of the sort that they had, council tax would be even higher.
	We seek to improve how we help pensioners who are paying council tax. Many of them are finding it difficult, which is why it is a priority for us to achieve take-up of council tax benefit. It is encouraging to note that pensioner take-up of council tax benefit increased by 2 per cent. in 2005-06—the first increase in a long time—but we need to get more take-up.
	We think that about four out of 10 pensioners still fail to take up council tax benefit. That represents a massive £1.9 billion in unclaimed council tax benefit. The money is there and we are ready to provide it, but we cannot force people to take it. We want to encourage them to do so, and I note the suggestion that local authorities could write much more effectively to local people to achieve greater take-up.
	I hope that the automaticity of payments that we plan for this October will boost take-up next year. It will mean that pensioners who claim pension credit by telephone can also claim council tax benefit and housing benefit automatically, with minimum form filling and fuss.
	Let me say a quick word on the link. It always strikes me as odd when the Conservatives talk about the restoration of the earnings link. After all, they abolished it in 1983. This Government have enshrined in law their commitment to restoring the link. To make our position clear, we understand the desire for a specific date, but we have indicated that we would wish to restore it in 2012, or during the next Parliament, as the public finances and economy allow.
	I have to say that this is not just something that we regard as desirable; it is fundamental to the package of reforms that we are taking forward. It is the foundation stone—the building block—for many other reforms, not only in the state sector under the Pensions Act 2007, but in the Bill that we are taking through Parliament. Restoring the link will mean lifting many more people out of pensioner poverty, and we will ensure that people are better off when they are saving on a private pension. That is a fundamental building block of our reform and it will be done—it is the key to our policies—but we need to take account of the wider fiscal and economic conditions.
	The Conservatives also talked about other changes. I want to look at some of those. In the 1980s and 1990s, being old was the single biggest indicator of poverty, but under this Government pensioner poverty is down. Our record shows that, today, age is no longer a proxy for poverty.
	In relation to pensioner poverty, there is a bigger issue that I want to touch on. We are committed to dealing with pensioner poverty—from Keir Hardie and Frederick Rogers, who led the campaign for the first state pension, to Clement Attlee, who extended the right of a pension to all, and Barbara Castle, who fought for better second pensions for older people—and we will continue to build on their legacy, targeting support on those most in need.
	Today, the challenges of ageing stretch beyond financial poverty. I want to talk about how our ageing society presents us with new challenges. While it is still important that we address poverty—that must be the first priority—the challenges stretch wider than material well-being. The poverty of experience in old age and people's lack of control over their own lives need to be addressed. We are developing a comprehensive strategy to ensure that old age is a time of opportunity and enjoyment, rather than merely struggle and endurance.
	Through our public service agreement, we want all Departments and local authorities to ensure that their policies and services better meet the needs of older people. Just as Beveridge identified the five giants he wanted to slay, I shall identify the five giants of old age with which we as a society—not just the Government—must get to grips in the decades ahead.
	The first is, of course, poverty. Our second challenge is to tackle the problems of frailty, both physical and mental, so that the onset of dementia or the loss of mobility does not mean that an older person becomes detached from society; rather, their life should be lived with some dignity and some respect. Thirdly, we must tackle discrimination, so that the 70-year-old who is still bursting with energy can continue to work and perhaps re-train in order to volunteer or contribute in some other way as an active member of the community. I echo what was said by the Prime Minister during Prime Minister's Question Time: I, too, look forward to the new equalities Bill.
	The fourth challenge is to tackle fear, so that older people feel confident in their homes and free to walk in their local streets, taking advantage of the public space that encourages interaction with others of all ages. The recent report by the World Health Organisation on age-friendly cities made particularly good points about that. The fifth challenge is perhaps the most difficult, and relates directly to pensioner poverty. We must tackle loneliness, so that the pensioner who lives alone, often isolated in a flat—talking to no one for a week, watching television—can find out where to go to make some friends, and can be encouraged to socialise or help in the local community.
	We need progress on those new challenges to our ageing society, and we will build on our record of tackling poverty to ensure that we deal with them as well. Our Government are committed to tackling poverty and improving the lives of older people. Our achievements since 1997 are in sharp contrast to the empty rhetoric and cheap soundbites of Opposition Members, and my commitment today is that we will not rest here. In 1997 we spent £62 billion on pensioners; in 2008 the figure has risen to £90 billion, and is projected to rise to £264 billion as a result of our reforms. We are the party with the belief, the energy and the passion to do more for our pensioners. We will continue to champion social justice, so that we can continue to build a society based on fairness and opportunity for both the young and the old.

Jennifer Willott: A Labour Back-Bencher told me yesterday that pensioners had never had it so good. While that may well be the case for some middle-class pensioners who bought their houses in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or 1980s—although they may be starting to get a little worried now—many pensioners are living close to, if not on, the poverty line. Many others are only not below the poverty line because they have undergone a complicated and intrusive process in order to claim means-tested benefits.
	I agree with all the points made in the motion, although there is an important omission. It is the one thing on which the Conservatives are holding back: an immediate restoration of the link between pensions and earnings. I shall say more about that later.
	When Labour came to power 11 years ago, they promised so much for pensioners. For some pensioners, life has improved. A huge 4 per cent. fewer of them live in poverty than in 1997, which represents progress, albeit a small amount. On the whole, however, pensioner poverty has remained fairly stagnant under Labour. According to the Government's own figures, 2.2 million pensioners are living in poverty after housing costs, compared with 2.4 million in 1997. The Minister looks confused, but those are the Government's figures. That equates to 21 per cent. of pensioners compared with 25 per cent. in 1997. However, given that in 1908, when the state pension was first introduced, 1.3 million people were considered to be paupers, the fact that 2.2 million pensioners in the same age category are now living in poverty strikes me as a slightly worrying trend.
	There has been some improvement in one area. Because the minimum income guarantee and pension credit are uprated in line with earnings, unlike the basic state pension, fewer pensioners have slipped into poverty. However, the absence of a larger problem is not necessarily much cause for celebration.
	A big problem with Labour's approach to pensioner poverty is its reliance on means-testing, which has been mentioned by several hon. Members today. The 2005-06 figures for the take-up of pension credit showed a rate of 65 per cent., or 2.6 million households. The Government estimate that 1.7 million people are missing out, and they are giving up on them by not pushing any further to increase take-up. The Government accept that they are not achieving that public service agreement target.
	The Department's annual report, which I am sure all hon. Members would agree makes gripping reading, said that in November 2007, 2.73 million households were receiving pension credit. That is positive, because it was a slight increase on the figure for 2005-06, but it prompts a question about information. Clearly, more data are available to the Department than have been published, and it is disappointing that that information was not made available for scrutiny as soon as possible. It would be interesting to know what other data the Department holds that have not been published.

Mike O'Brien: If the hon. Lady goes and checks the record—I say this gently to her—she will find that there was a ministerial statement at the time.

Jennifer Willott: Indeed; that is a valid point. Perhaps it is because the initial estimate was that 1.4 million people would not claim pension credit that the Government have assumed that 1.7 million is close enough to that figure for them to let the target quietly drop.
	Will the Minister tell us, when he winds up the debate later, whether the suggestions made by the National Audit Office in 2006 were looked at and attempted before it was decided to drop the PSA target? The Government appear instead to have focused on gimmicks such as the pensioner Christmas bonus—a generous £10, I believe—which will not do very much to help, with food inflation at its present rate.
	One of the major reasons that pensioners are falling behind the rest of the population is that, since the Conservative Government broke the link with earnings in the 1980s, the basic state pension is uprated only in relation to prices. I concur with the Minister that that is a fundamental cause of many of the problems that pensioners now have with poverty. If they do not qualify for pension credit, they can get poorer in relation to the rest of the population as they get older, as the value of their pension diminishes. The Tories did a huge amount of damage between 1979 and 1997, reducing the basic state pension from 26 per cent. of average earnings to 17 per cent. That represents a huge drop over 18 years. Unfortunately, it has dropped even further under Labour, and it is now just 15 per cent. of average earnings.
	Different European countries have already been mentioned, and I shall now throw another one into the mix. The value of our basic state pension, at 15 per cent. of average earnings, is worse than in the overwhelming majority of European countries—and not just the ones that we might expect, such as Sweden and Norway. That proportion is also worse than in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Portugal. Our basic state pension is worth less in relation to wages now than it was in 1978, 1958 or even 1908.

Anne Begg: It was remiss of me not to congratulate the hon. Lady, my ex-Select Committee colleague, on her promotion when I last intervened on her. Perhaps she is being disingenuous in making these comparisons. She says that the basic state pension in Britain is worse than that of Italy, but I am sure that she knows—as I do, having met some Italian politicians—that there is very little second pension provision in Italy. Almost all pensioners there depend almost wholly on the state pension. The relative wealth of pensioners in the two countries is therefore quite different, and in Britain, our pensioners are much better off.

Mike O'Brien: The way in which the hon. Lady is using these statistics is questionable. She knows very well that, following the 2007 Act, as from 2010—not so long to wait—75 per cent. of women will become eligible for a full basic state pension. She is right that it will rise over the following decade and a half to 90 per cent., or full equality. But the big jump will take place in 2010 for carers and for women who will be able to get a full basic state pension.

Michael Penning: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the Minister keeps making interventions after making a long speech at the start, there will be no time for Back Benchers to contribute to this very important debate. Is there any way in which you can stop the Minister getting up?

Jennifer Willott: Not for the moment. The Liberal Democrats would restore the earnings link immediately, so that pensioners stop falling further and further behind the rest of the population, and then we would introduce a radical overhaul of the basic state pension. We would increase it by up to £130 a month for single pensioners, and by up to £220 a month for couples. We would base entitlement on residency, not on national insurance contributions, and that would particularly help carers and women who have taken time out to bring up children. Such an approach would also reduce significantly the means-testing requirements. As well as improving income levels, it would, thus, encourage and support private saving, because it would remove the disincentive that has been introduced by significant levels of means-testing. The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) referred to that. Those proposals would eventually remove 3.5 million pensioners from means-testing, and would reduce the projected levels of means-testing from the current estimate of 40 to 50 per cent., to about 10 per cent. The problems that having such high levels of means-testing will generate have been flagged up.
	We need to tackle the cost of living for pensioners, rather than just their income levels. As has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members, one of the biggest problems is council tax. Scrapping that and replacing it with a fairer system based on people's income—the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) discussed that—would make a huge difference to pensioners' disposable income. There are also real concerns about fuel poverty and the cost of other items of household expenditure.
	The cost of food and fuel has risen significantly, especially recently. Since pensioners spend on average a third of their income on food and fuel, their inflation rate this year is much higher than the national indices produced by the Government. Estimates were produced in January that showed that inflation for pensioners will reach 7 per cent. in 2008. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne said earlier, it may be as high as 9 per cent., or more than double the national inflation estimate. At the same time as pensioners' income is falling behind that of the rest of the population, the pensioners' price index is significantly outstripping RPI, and that is a disturbing trend.
	Fuel poverty is an issue that I have been concerned about for some time, even before I took on my present role. I represent a Welsh constituency and Wales has much higher levels of fuel poverty than other parts of the UK. It is good to see others taking up the issue and I welcome some of the moves that the Government have made recently to try to tackle the problem by working more closely with energy companies. We have already reached a crisis point on the issue. The number of households in fuel poverty has more than doubled since 2004 and the average energy bill is more than £1,000 this year, which is a huge amount for poor families and pensioners to pay.
	In 2005, there were 1,500 excess winter deaths among pensioners in Wales alone, so the figures for the UK as a whole are very worrying. People are dying partly because they cannot afford adequate heating, and that should not be allowed to happen in a civilised country such as ours. We need a much more concerted effort to tackle that issue, and I am glad to see the Government taking the first steps.
	The Government have made some progress, but they are grinding to a halt with their abandonment of the PSA target—at the worst possible time, given rising prices, increasing fuel poverty and the basic state pension reducing in value year on year. While I agree with the motion, the important missing element is a commitment to a date for the restoration of the earnings link. The Conservatives are pussyfooting around on the issue and making no firm commitments. Given that the last time that they were in power the situation of pensioners worsened, we have to ask why it would be any different next time.
	The state pension was introduced by a Liberal Government 100 years ago this year, and we are still the only party making radical proposals.

Gerald Kaufman: I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott). Although she is new to her role, she has fallen immediately into the trap for Liberal Democrat spokespeople on any subject—making unrealisable promises, made because Liberal Democrats know that they will never be in a position to fulfil any of the commitments that they make. It is easy for them, because it is only words.
	I have a great personal regard for the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) and I always enjoy listening to him. However, I have to say how sorry I am that he has been used as the front man for a Conservative debate on pensions that is one of the most opportunistic debates in which I have ever participated or to which I have listened. Listening to Conservatives bewailing the plight of pensioners is like listening to Scrooge singing, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas". It does not come credibly from a party that had an appalling record on pensions in the 18 years for which it held office before Labour regained power in 1997. The hon. Gentleman explained to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister how keen the Opposition were to debate pensions, despite the fact that they have postponed the debate twice. The hon. Gentleman did not point out that today is one of the Tory party's days for choosing the subject, but throughout the debate on this issue, which the Conservatives claim is of such importance to their party, 93 per cent. of the Conservative Members of the House of Commons have been absent. It is their day, and it for them to produce speakers and people to listen to those speakers.
	As I said, the Conservative voice on pensions is very difficult to accept as credible. For example, we had an intervention from the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who has now very sensibly made himself scarce. The right hon. Gentleman inveighed against the cost of fuel, yet it was him who, as a member of the Conservative Government, voted for the Norman Lamont Budget that introduced the annual built-in fuel tax escalator. As I said during Question Time the other day, there is no point in the Conservatives' staging debates and producing commitments when we look at their record. As Aneurin Bevan said, "Why look into the crystal when you can read the book?" The book of the Conservative party's record on pensions is one of the most abysmal of those on all the subjects with which it has been involved in the House of Commons.

Gerald Kaufman: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman accurately expects a Labour Government to be in office in 2015, as they will be, with me as a Back Bencher to support them. He will remember that when we were elected in 1997, we made a commitment to abide by spending and taxation levels as an act of fiscal responsibility. Of course I would like the link to be restored sooner—I will campaign for that—but let us be clear that it is no good for him to be moaning and wailing about us not putting right as quickly as some people would like something that the Conservatives put wrong deliberately.
	When the Government introduced winter fuel payments in November 1997, the Conservative party derided the payments. It said that they were a gimmick and implied that it would get rid of them. It was only when it turned out that winter fuel payments were popular and helpful for pensioners that the Conservative party backtracked. When Conservative Members talk about the value of winter fuel payments and about poverty for pensioners, they must take account of the fact that they are complaining that something initiated by a Labour Government should be improved still further. That is quite true, but let us not forget that without a Labour Government, there would not have been winter fuel payments. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that pensioners know about that.
	The hon. Gentleman complained about the take-up and availability of the Warm Front scheme. Constituents write to me, as no doubt they write to him, about their wish to be involved in the scheme, but who created the scheme? The Labour Government did so in 2000. The scheme never existed under a Conservative Government. For Conservative Members to say that there is not enough take-up of the scheme is for them to admit that the scheme is valuable, which makes one wonder why the Conservative party never introduced it. When constituents ask me to do so, I visit them in their homes to discuss issues if they are not well enough or mobile enough to come and see me at my constituency surgery. When the Conservatives were in government, in winter, constituents would ask me to visit in the early afternoon, because as soon as it got dark they would go to bed, as they could not afford to heat their houses. They lived in misery.
	The Liberal Democrat party seems to believe that the issue is simply about reeling out a succession of statistics. The issue of pensioner poverty is of course involved with money, but in the end it is a human problem. As hon. Members have said, pensioners are living longer and longer because of the creation of the welfare state and because of the way in which health services assist pensioners. That involves the possibility of pensioners living alone and having to spend time alone. If their relatives do not live near them, they have the problem of loneliness, and the problem of participation in the general life of the community. That is a very important point. There is absolutely no doubt that money is very important for pensioners, but they also need the possibility of company. They need drop-in centres and the availability of all kinds of other facilities to make them feel that they are not on their own and are part of a community.
	I do not for a moment say that the Government have solved the problem of poverty among pensioners. Of course they have not, and I very much doubt whether any Government will totally solve it, because there are more and more pensioners the whole time. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central mentioned the number of people who were helped as a result of the creation of the old-age pension by Lloyd George. There are now 11 million people of pensionable age—a huge proportion of the population. Their need for the public services created by the state grows and grows.
	From time to time, I discuss with the chief executive of the Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospital NHS Trust the issues that he has to deal with, and one of them is the fact that because pensioners are living longer and longer—that is a good thing, of course—they contract illnesses that they would not otherwise have lived to contract. Of course they require the services of the NHS. They require hospital space.
	One of the problems that we did solve—my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) solved it when we came to office in 1997—was bed blocking, and the fact that pensioners could not be discharged from hospital because there were no carers to look after them. At the time, there were no spaces in care homes, which the Conservatives had privatised. We solved that problem, but the fact is that pensioners will draw disproportionately on the services of the NHS because it is in the nature of ageing that they will contract all kinds of ailments that they would previously never have lived to contract.
	What have we done on the issue? In his impressive account of the Government's record, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform mentioned that 3 million old-age pensioner households have been lifted out of poverty since 1997, that the basic state pension has risen above inflation every year since 2000, and that 3.3 million senior citizens receive pension credit. This very April we introduced free local bus travel for every pensioner as a right throughout the United Kingdom. The ability to travel and see family members is extremely important to counteract pensioner loneliness. We did that.

Brooks Newmark: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I assume that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) is cheering because he is looking forward to what I have to say on this important subject.
	We all have to cope with a rising cost of living and a record burden of tax from a Government who have clearly run out of money. However, we should regard the fact that that burden falls disproportionately on pensioners—some of the most vulnerable people in our society—as a disgrace. The real cost of living is increasing steadily, and that is all the more apparent for pensioners living on low or fixed incomes. Recent research highlights the fact that inflation for the elderly is more than a third higher than the official consumer prices index rate, at 3.4 per cent. As we have heard today, the elderly spend a higher proportion of their income on the bare necessities and less on consumer goods.
	However, the numbers themselves do not tell the whole story of pensioners in my semi-rural constituency; they are struggling to run a car, and struggling with rising energy bills and the rising cost of a pint of milk and a loaf of bread. I want to focus on just two themes: fuel poverty and the Government's addiction to the means-testing of pensioners.
	Rising energy costs are inconvenient to almost everybody, but they are potentially deadly to pensioners. Earlier this year, I wrote to the chief executive of EDF Energy, which supplies many of my constituents in Braintree and Witham, to ask what steps the company was taking to lighten the load of fuel poverty, which is falling on vulnerable people, particularly pensioners. The response that I received drew my attention to EDF's very welcome social tariff, which offers a 15 per cent. discount on energy bills for those in receipt of income support or pension credit or who are recognised as living in fuel poverty because they spend more than 10 per cent. of their annual income on energy. Nevertheless, a percentage discount of that kind becomes less and less relevant as the underlying cost continues to spiral upwards. The scheme will need to be kept under review, particularly as some energy suppliers have raised their tariffs by more than 15 per cent. already this year and average fuel bills have risen by 60 per cent. in the past four years.
	I have two further observations, applicable to both the private sector and the Government in their respective responses to pensioner poverty, the first of which is short-termism. EDF, for instance, confirmed that its scheme is guaranteed to continue until March of next year, but not beyond. Similarly, the Government have shown time and again that they also favour short-term solutions to pensioner poverty; this year's Budget offered another one-off payment for pensioners, who would rather have a sustainable income. I have previously addressed this issue at some length with the Prime Minister. When the Treasury Committee considered the 2006 Budget, I reminded the right hon. Gentleman of Help the Aged's view of the failure to repeat a £200 council tax rebate for pensioners:
	"The Government issued a pre-election bribe last year but they have not renewed it for 2006. This exposes a shameful level of political expediency".
	When I asked the Prime Minister what had changed since the general election, he said
	"What has changed is we said in the last Budget that this was for the year and we made no commitment for it beyond that."
	Unfortunately, this culture of Government living from year to year, devoid of long-term planning, does little to help the vulnerable pensioners who are living from hand to mouth day by day.

Brooks Newmark: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is happening across the board throughout all public services. The pre-Budget report and the Budget showed that the Government are having to make cut after cut, and the people paying the price are the vulnerable—the poorest in our society, particularly pensioners.
	We have seen all too recently what happens to a Government fearing annihilation in local elections and by-elections—they feel free to make costly electoral bribes with taxpayers' money. Unfortunately, we have also seen the doubling of council tax over the past decade, met with rebates that then vanish after the electoral dust has settled. Now there is an additional one-off winter fuel payment of £100 for 2008-09. There has also been an increase in personal allowances partially to compensate those who lost out from the doubling of the 10p rate, which, again, will vanish when the year is up. The common theme in all the Government's disingenuous ingenuity is the short time horizon for additional support offered to the elderly and the vulnerable. This is not a helpful approach for those who are on low and fixed incomes and whose savings have been systematically eroded by the Government's ever-increasing dependence on means-testing.
	My second observation concerns the challenge of increasing uptake. A total of 55,000 people are currently on EDF Energy's reduced social tariff, although the chief executive was unable to tell me how many of them fell within my constituency. I am glad that the private sector is taking action, and I hope that more will be done to promote uptake amongst pensioners and other vulnerable people. Yet the Government's response to pensioner fuel poverty has been an expensive awareness campaign through Citizens Advice that is unlikely to reach the most vulnerable pensioners who do not take the initiative to seek such advice. On the DWP's own figures, between 1.1 million and 1.7 million pensioners are not claiming the help that they are entitled to, and the Department even admits that the numbers responding to its campaigns to increase uptake are steadily decreasing over time.
	More worrying still is the proposal for even more invasive data sharing between the Government and the energy companies—a point eloquently made earlier in the week by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan). If a major energy supplier such as EDF does not hold data that can tell me how many people in my constituency—or in Braintree district, if that is easier for it—already make use of its own scheme, I have little confidence in entrusting it with the personal data of millions of vulnerable pensioners.
	The elephant in the room concerning uptake remains the Government's utter failure to address their reliance on the principle of means-testing pensioners. The first question that I ever asked the former Prime Minister, in response to the concerns of the Braintree Pensioners Action Group, addressed that very point and it is something that I have since followed up with his successor. The current Prime Minister has told me that,
	"Our aim is to link tax and benefits for pensioners in a way that there is a seamless transition through the benefit and tax system."
	But outside his own parallel universe, the interaction of the tax and benefit system has so many burst seams that the stuffing is falling out completely. The Government are still trying to compensate for the heavier tax burden and higher costs of living facing pensioners by relying on one-off bribes and means-tested benefits that pensioners find complicated and inaccessible. As many hon. Members do, I routinely see pensioners who qualify for means-tested benefits but do not understand their entitlement, even if they happen to receive it, because they are forced to plough through page after page of abstruse computer-generated calculations. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) made that point.
	The Prime Minister has also told me that the complexity does not matter so much because:
	"What we have reduced is the amount of means-testing that is done for pensioners."
	Bah, humbug! But there are still 3.74 million people over the age of 60 in receipt of means-tested benefits and many more who are entitled to claim but do not do so. Help the Aged identifies a staggering sum of up to £4.5 billion that lies unclaimed each year. Furthermore, half of those pensioners entitled to council tax benefit do not claim it. Once again, there is a disconnect between the Prime Minister's rhetoric on means-testing and the reality of stagnating uptake, a declining savings culture and an ongoing failure to reach those pensioners who are most in need of additional support.
	As the Government move to the introduction of personal accounts, the reliance on means-tested benefits will pose new problems for a new generation of savers looking towards their retirement. The Government must face up to the need to grasp the means-testing nettle so that people feel confident about saving for the future. The message must be that taking personal responsibility along with a personal account is the right thing for pensioners, and we will not leave them worse off. The Opposition motion is right to call on the Government to deliver on one promise from 1997, but they must also deliver on another: the end of means-testing for the elderly.

Geraldine Smith: I had not intended to speak today. I intended just to come into the Chamber to hear what the Conservatives were going to say about pensioner poverty. I thought that they would be embarrassed and shamefaced when we looked back at the appalling record of the previous Conservative Government on pensioners and pensioner poverty. In contrast, the present Government's record is very good. How well we look after the most vulnerable members of society is the mark of a civilised society. This Government have a good record of looking after those vulnerable members, including the poorest pensioners.
	The pension credit has been very successful, and it has helped several thousand pensioners in my constituency. It can make a difference of up to £30 or £40 a week, which is a substantial amount for someone on a low income. I accept some of the comments about the forms being complex and the take-up rate. We need to improve that; much more needs to be done. I listened to people from the Pension Service go through telephone calls with pensioners, and I have to say that what they did was very good. They took a lot of time, and some of those people are dedicated; they take pride and pleasure from helping pensioners claim the money to which they are rightly entitled.
	We come to the winter fuel allowance—another success for this Government. It is interesting that it appears that the Conservatives intend to scrap it.

Charles Walker: MRSA. C. difficile. People lying in their own vomit under you.

Michael Penning: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was addressing the comments that the Minister made in his opening remarks. If the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) had been in the Chamber at that time, he would have known that and would not be wasting the Chamber's time now.
	If the Minister thinks that no demonstrations are taking place and that pensioners are not concerned, he should join the hundreds of thousands of people around the country who are demonstrating against hospital closures, not least the 30-odd thousand who have signed a petition in my constituency. He mentioned that there is no bed blocking, but the reason why there is not much bed blocking in my constituency is that the wards are closing. Many care homes are also closing, and that is causing even more problems for hospitals in other areas that are trying to bring patients back to my constituency, because there is nowhere for them to go.
	The Minister said that things are better today than they were 11 years ago. At that time, I was in a union that is no longer affiliated to the Labour party, and we made contributions to the Labour party—I must admit that I had my donations removed—in the hope that it would address the issues that it had talked about so much when it was in opposition for so long, but that has not happened. The figures that we have heard today are frightening—not least those given by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott)—and show the many problems of so many pensioners who are still in poverty.
	Let me draw the Minister's attention to one of the biggest demonstrations by pensioners in this country. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central has joined me on many demonstrations, at which, to draw attention to the plight of the 140,000 pensioners whose pensions were stolen from them, many middle-aged men who had never demonstrated in their life took off most of their clothes just to get some publicity and to get the Government to listen to their plight.
	The Minister has proudly said that he has addressed that issue and that the Government have come forward with a package for those pensioners, who will get 90 per cent. of what they would have got, but I find that slightly difficult. I know the Minister well and I know that he has tried hard, but that has taken five years of promises, meetings, more meetings and demonstrations by people who had done the honourable thing. I have made this speech many times before in the House, and I know that the Minister agrees that they are honourable people who did the right thing. They worked hard and did not spend their money on holidays in lavish places, but put it into a pension scheme that Governments had said was safe.
	This Government were taken to the parliamentary ombudsman on this matter, who found that they were in breach and that there had been maladministration. That is a fact that even the Minister cannot deny. He might disagree with the conclusions that were reached, but that is what the independent ombudsman found. The Government challenged the finding and said that they would not pay the compensation that the pensioners deserved and went to court, where they lost again. They went to the European Court, but they lost again, although they kept saying that they would not. They challenged the ruling in the courts.
	For the Minister to stand here and say what a wonderful job the Government have done in compensating those pensioners five years later sticks in my throat slightly, because I know that although he has done his bit, his predecessors have been misleading, frankly, in many ways, regarding the promises that were made. I do not know why the Government did not listen to the parliamentary ombudsman at the time. That is exactly what previous Governments had done; they had adhered to the parliamentary ombudsman's report, come up with a compensation package and paid the compensation.
	One of the great problems—I know that the Minister knows this to be a fact—is that, because this has taken five years, a lot of these pensioners will now get a lump sum, which will put them into a completely different tax bracket from the one that would have applied if they had been given their pension, to which they had a right, five years ago. It cannot be right for the Government to bring forward a compensation package that will force pensioners to pay more tax than they would have done if they had had their pension by right. Earlier on, the Minister said that this was a matter for the pensioners to take up with the taxman, but it is not; it is a matter for the Government to sort out. It is not the pensioners' fault that they did not get their pensions. It was due to this Government's maladministration—that is the parliamentary ombudsman's word, not mine—that they failed to get their pensions.
	Two groups of people are really suffering, at both ends of the spectrum, in relation to income tax. There are those who will receive a lump sum and will have to pay 40 per cent. of it, which they would not have had to pay if they had had their compensation earlier. Another group—a smaller group, I admit—comprises those who are the most needy and who would have paid only 10p in the pound before the Government abolished the 10p tax rate. Surely it cannot be right for any Government—let alone this Government, who have promised to compensate the people who have lost out—to do that. If the 10p rate had still been in place, and if those people had been given the pension that they deserved, they would not have to pay the 20p in the pound that they will now be asked to pay. I have not seen any compensation package that will protect those people.

Andrew Selous: I do not have long left, and I am going to respond to the hon. Members who have spoken in the debate.
	The figures also show that the proportion of pensioners living in poverty in the UK increased between 1997 and 2006, while the proportion of over-65s living in poverty in Greece, Portugal, France, Austria and Luxembourg fell. So, I hope that we will hear some sober reflection from the Minister on what more can be done, within the constraints of pretty battered public finances, to help today's pensioners, who are struggling with massively high gas, electricity and oil bills, as well as much higher food prices, increased council tax and the loss of the 10p tax band.
	One of my pensioner constituents wrote to me last month, and the Ministers might like to listen to what he said:
	"As a life long supporter of the Labour party I must say that I am perplexed that a Labour Government should penalise pensioners with a modest income. Revenue & Customs have been of little help in answering my questions...The Government's proposal to compensate those who have lost out is, to my mind, too late as it does not reflect a change in policy but is simply a political response to last week's defeat at the polls. I wish you well in your legitimate attack on the Government and, like many other citizens, await the next General Election when we can vent our displeasure."
	It is good for Ministers to hear what ordinary pensioners who used to support the Labour party are saying.
	I raised with the previous Prime Minister the fact that some of my constituents, and others up and down the country, were paying one third or more of their entire income in council tax. Many pensioners across the country run down their savings every year in order to stay in the home they love and to pay their council tax, which invariably rises at a far higher rate than their pension. What have the Government done with the Lyons review on the future of council tax? Again, they have dithered and kicked it into the long grass. That simply will not do; our elderly constituents deserve better, as the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale rightly mentioned. That applies not least to English pensioners, who are suffering tax and council tax increases, while the Scots have their council tax frozen this year. What happened to fairness across the United Kingdom?
	We have heard criticisms of a lack of Conservative policy, but my hon. Friends were elected to this House in 2005 on a manifesto commitment to halve the council tax of everyone over the age of 65, up to a maximum of £500 a year, for the life of this Parliament. That compares with the Government's lower, £200 for one year only, offer. We were also elected on a pledge to restore the earnings link, when the Labour party was telling the country that that could not be done. So, we are not going to take any lectures tonight on Conservative party failings, not least because the Government have nicked at least eight Conservative policies. I know that Labour Members are keen to know what the Conservative policy will be in more areas, but as they have already stolen so many of our policies, we will keep a few in the locker until just before the general election, so that the Government do not take those as well.
	The raid on private pensions has taken place, whereby £100 billion has been taken out, and the savings ratio is only a third of what it was in the second quarter of 1997. In many societies, respect for the elderly is a given, but in our country the cult of youth often seems to dominate. Taking the right decisions now to look after current and future pensioners—the men and women who have given a lifetime of service to our country—is one of the most important responsibilities that we face in this House.

James Plaskitt: We have had an interesting debate this afternoon with contributions from the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott)—I welcome her to her new post—my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) and from the hon. Members for Braintree (Mr. Newmark), for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). The debate has been based on the Conservative motion and I shall conclude it by focusing on that, and as I do so, I shall respond to specific points made by hon. Members.
	The motion begins with a comment about 2 million pensioners still living in poverty. As we have established this afternoon, we take no lessons on poverty from the Tory party. During the 1980s, pensioner poverty fell only when there was a recession. That was the Tory method of cutting pensioner poverty—reduce median income, watch the wages of working-age people drop and unemployment rise and, hey presto, pensioner poverty falls. In fact, when this Government came to power in 1997, 3.2 million pensioners were in absolute poverty.
	Unlike the Tories, we believe in giving the poorest in our society meaningful help, while keeping the economy strong. Because of the effective measures that we have taken and substantial extra investment, pensioner poverty has fallen while the economy has grown. And it has fallen not by a bit, but by more than 2 million in absolute terms. Support such as pension credit, winter fuel payments and help with council tax mean that today pensioner households are on average £29 a week better off than under the 1997 system and the poorest third are £40 a week better off. That means that today, pensioners are less likely to be in poverty than any group in society. That could never have been said under the previous Conservative Government.
	The second claim in the motion is that
	"the poorest pensioners are seeing their incomes decline in real terms".
	That claim is simply wrong. The Conservatives' source seems to be a misreading of a parliamentary answer given by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform in July 2007. The figures in the answer were in real terms and included the effect of inflation. To get the figure used in the motion, the Conservatives have double-counted for inflation. Perhaps that is because they used to run inflation at double the level that it is under this Government.
	Opposition Members appear to find it difficult to even get a basic understanding of the figures. Such figures are only accurate as trends and the trend is very firmly up for all groups of pensioners over the past decade. The trends show that the incomes of the poorest pensioner households have risen by around 30 per cent. since 1997. Average pensioner incomes have risen by 29 per cent. since 1997 in real terms, compared to earnings growth of 16 per cent.
	The motion then makes a claim based on the EUROSTAT statistics about pensioners in Latvia, Cyprus and Spain, to which the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire returned in his speech. The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central also focused on them. The claim rests on a complete misreading of the data. The EUROSTAT survey measures the median income of each country and that of pensioners. The UK is relatively well-off so our poverty line is higher, and so our "poorest pensioners" are better off than the "poorest pensioners" in other countries. The motion's claim is therefore spurious.
	The UK has the fifth highest median pensioner income in the EU—higher than in France, Denmark and Sweden. So a "poor" pensioner in the UK has an income a 10th higher than that of a poor pensioner in Germany and a fifth higher than one in France. A poor pensioner in the UK has an income nearly twice that of a poor Spanish pensioner, three times that of a poor Latvian pensioner and more than 10 times that of a Cypriot pensioner. Furthermore, the EUROSTAT figures also ignore housing costs, personal pensions, and free health care—

James Plaskitt: No, I do not have time.
	So, if hon. Members want to use EUROSTAT, the most reliable data are those that show that a decade ago UK pensioners had a median income which was one seventh below that of the EU15. Today, it is nearly one 10th above that median. That is the reality of the situation.
	The charge of rising costs adding further to poverty was stressed by the hon. Members for Braintree, for Weston-super-Mare and for Broxbourne. In the past 10 years, pensioner incomes have increased by more than inflation and by more than the average growth in earnings. That puts pensioners in a better position when dealing with the recent increases in the cost of living.
	Where we can take action to help the poorest with the rising cost of living, we are. On fuel bills, we announced last week that we are taking serious steps to enable energy companies to ensure that the most vulnerable pensioners have cheaper bills. For this winter, we have offered the energy companies the facility to send a mailshot or voucher to any of our clients on pension credit. That is coupled with the increase in the winter fuel payment announced in the Budget and the commitment of the energy suppliers to provide an extra £225 million in support over the next three years. That will provide significant extra support to the most vulnerable, enabling them to pay their fuel bills.
	Of course, pensioners are concerned about council tax increases. That is why council tax benefit take-up is important. We are encouraged by the fact that since we have increased activity on take-up it has started to rise, going up by 2 per cent. in 2005-06. We need to go further and so we are introducing automaticity into the claiming of pensioner benefits. We estimate that that will lift 50,000 more pensioners out of poverty by 2010.
	One of the most incredible aspects of the motion is what we have heard from the Conservatives about restoring the link between average earnings and the basic state pension. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton reminded us, the Tories broke that link and when they did so they said that it was the right thing to do. Clearly, they have no credibility whatsoever on the issue. We are committed to restoring that link, and of that there is no doubt, because we have enshrined it in law. Our aim is to re-link in 2012, subject to affordability and the fiscal position, so the latest that it could happen would be the end of the next Parliament. Restoring the link is part of a package of reforms. Unlike the Tories, we are not breaking the link or talking about restoring it for one Parliament only. We are making a commitment to do it for real and in a lasting and sustainable way. It will ensure that the poorest in our society benefit from significant increases in their income.
	We then come to the claim about abandoning the target for pension credit take-up. That is old news, as we have established before. Last year, we had a stretching target to get 235,000 new claimants on to pension credit. All the indications are that we have exceeded that target, so for this year we have set an even more stretching target of 250,000. That shows our commitment to the poorest in society and to ensuring that we continue to make every effort to lift them out of poverty.
	The motion moves on to make claims about the decline in private pension savings. That decline has been going on in the UK since the 1960s. In 1967, there were 8.1 million on such schemes. By the 1970s, there were 6 million, by the late 1980s there were 5.8 million and today there are 4.5 million. The reforms that we have introduced will ensure the best offer in the future for savings for pensioners.
	To conclude, the motion has been on the starting grid on a couple of occasions, only to be withdrawn to something else to be debated. The motion rather resembles one of the Tory party's old bangers; I suspect they got it ready to go a couple of times, took a look at it and thought, "Well, perhaps not—it doesn't really look very roadworthy." That is what we have found out today. Even with the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson)—an advanced motorist—at the wheel, it could not be kept on the road. Bit by bit, it has fallen apart—

Resolved,
	That this House concurs with the Lords Message of 2nd June that, notwithstanding the Resolution of this House of 30th April, it be an instruction to the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill that it should report on the draft Bill by 22nd July— [Mr. Watts.]

Gordon Banks: I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker for giving me the opportunity to present this petition of 3,500 signatures on behalf my constituents in Ochil and South Perthshire calling for a redesign of the looped cord operation design for window blinds.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of readers of the Alloa and Hillfoots Advertiser and others of like disposition,
	Declares that looped operating cords on window blinds are dangerous, particularly to young children, as the tragic death of Menstrie toddler Muireann McLaughlin in February 2008 and similar tragic deaths of children in the UK demonstrates. The Government should take all necessary actions to prevent further unnecessary deaths in the future.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to bring forward legislation banning looped operating cords on window blinds and curtains.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.,
	[P000192]

Janet Dean: I am grateful for the opportunity this evening to present three petitions. Many of my constituents who are residents of Stapenhill, Marchington and Mayfield are deeply concerned about the future of their post offices, and more than 400 people attended the three public meetings I organised to oppose the closure of three of the five post offices in my constituency that Post Office Ltd wishes to close.
	The first petition is from the village of Mayfield and bears 473 signatures.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of supporters of the 'Keep Mayfield Post Office Open' campaign,
	Declares that the supporters recognise the importance of the Post Office and shop to their community and oppose the current closure plan.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Ltd to keep Mayfield Post Office open
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000205]
	The second petition is from the residents of Marchington and bears 520 signatures.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of supporters of the 'Keep Marchington Post Office Open' campaign,
	Declares that the supporters recognise the importance of the Post Office and shop to their community and oppose the current closure plan.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Ltd to keep Marchington Post Office open.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000204]
	Finally, 1,827 local people have petitioned to support the retention of Stapenhill post office.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of supporters of the 'Keep Stapenhill Post Office Open' campaign,
	Declares that the supporters recognise the importance of the Post Office to their community and oppose the current closure plan.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Ltd to keep Stapenhill Post Office open.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000203]

John Robertson: I am pleased to have the chance to discuss internet content and internet service providers with my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, not least because I have been trying to secure this debate for several months. I know that, like me, many of my colleagues regularly receive correspondence from constituents who are worried about internet content, and I have been especially keen to discuss those matters following the Byron review, but on several occasions I have been told by the Table Office that there is no Department appropriate to field such a debate. The strategy of representatives of each Department that we tried to assign it to has been to hold up its hands in affront and deny any responsibility for the matter.
	My worry is that that is an allegory of the current situation relating to responsibility for internet content, and that the excuse is, sadly, endemic. ISPs claim to be mere inanimate conduits; search engines plead their neutrality; Ofcom has intentionally been denied any remit for content; other UK Executive and regulatory bodies, including the police, have powers over only a tiny minority of websites; and the Internet Watch Foundation is limited in the subjects it monitors and by the international nature of the internet. As a result, the various initiatives that have been implemented are piecemeal and inadequate, and the internet stands out as an anomaly against similar media as a place where, essentially, anything goes. It is a paradox that the efforts of ISPs to deal with illegal content are a strong argument for regulating them, as we see that the tools they have are the most effective method of controlling material online.
	Before outlining my case, I should state that, as joint-chairman of the all-party communications group, I am a fully fledged internet enthusiast. I welcome the fact that just under 60 per cent. of households in the UK now have broadband, although I am disappointed that my own city, Glasgow, has the lowest uptake.
	Even in the space of a decade, the internet has revolutionised the way many people live, from accessing information to socialising. Across the world, it has been an empowering and democratising force. I do not doubt that freedom for the network is important to its continuing evolution and, in that respect, our approach to regulating the internet in the UK will set an important precedent.
	However, because the internet has come so far, we need to regulate content. What was originally a network that was exclusively confined to communications for the American military establishment is now in the majority of homes across the country and in three quarters of households with children. Furthermore, there is an increasing blurring of the distinctions between the internet and the traditional media and means of accessing services. Two examples are that half of all internet users have watched video online, and that BBC iPlayer has a weekly audience of around 1.1 million.
	In the light of those trends, the argument that the Government previously used to justify inaction—that there is a tradition of non-regulation of the internet—surely becomes untenable. Together with the benefits of the internet, there has been a range of tangible negative effects for the UK. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and Revenue and Customs have both attributed a vast increase in counterfeit medicines to websites selling illegal drugs. The BPI has calculated that around £160 million was lost by the music industry through illegal downloads in 2007, and NBC Universal estimates that online piracy cost film and TV businesses £129 million a year. Those are coupled with less tangible effects, for instance, the increased availability of extremist and hate-inciting literature, or of young people being exposed to pro-disorder and suicide websites.

Malcolm Wicks: I thought I had just specified the timetable. We will publish the plan in September 2008, after which we will establish what action is required.
	I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West that these are important issues, and if he has found it difficult to obtain a departmental response, I apologise. As a Department, we want to engage fully with Members on the issue. It is vital that we ensure that the regulatory framework as it applies to the internet keeps up with changes in the technology, and with changes in the way in which people use it. The Government are acting to secure the protection of children through the Byron review, and getting the long-term framework right by means of the convergence think tank.
	I think it important—my hon. Friend referred to this—to stick to the principle that what is illegal offline is illegal online. Enforcement online might be much more difficult than offline, especially where those engaging in illegal activity are based outside this country, but that is no reason to apply different approaches as to what is and is not allowed, in particular when it comes to content that is considered undesirable rather than illegal.
	My hon. Friend has called for a widely applicable solution based on blocking unpleasant or unlawful internet sites, based on the model of the Internet Watch Foundation. Network level blocking presents some difficulties. In reducing access to such material, we would need to weigh up the costs and potential difficulties against the evidence of benefits, and to compare its potential effectiveness against other options, such as improving filtering tools and pointing people towards sources of support and other positive material.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend raised the distressing issue of suicide websites, and the tragedies that have occurred in her own community. What is being done to protect people from websites that encourage suicide? The Government are deeply concerned about those websites and the influence that they can have on vulnerable people and, particularly, young people. We have accepted the recommendations of the Byron review, including that the new UK council on child internet safety look at whether the law on harmful and inappropriate online material could usefully be clarified, and that appropriate enforcement responses be explored. The Ministry of Justice is looking urgently at whether the law in that area could sensibly be strengthened, and will make an announcement shortly.